You Know What Its Like To Be Unmade
by avengersashley
Summary: "Have you ever had someone pick your brain and play? Pull you out, stuff something else in. Do you know what it's like to be unmade?" Where it all began. Agent Barton was sent to kill the Black Widow, but a different call was made. Instead, the duo became the inseparable pair that you know and love today. But it wasn't all fun and games for our two assassins. COMPLETE
1. Chapter 1

The hooded figure crossed the rainy streets of Budapest, moving swiftly through a crowd of people dressed identically to her. With their hoods pulled up, umbrella over their heads, you couldn't recognize anyone. She blended in perfectly as if she was a normal citizen. Except she was anything but normal. Budapest was lovely, and she really she had the time to visit and explore the area. Cathedrals crowned every corner, and market stalls filled the streets. Vendors yelled at her from their cart in Hungarian, asking her to sample this lamb or examine this crystal plate. But she had a mission to complete.

Turning down a dark alley and dropping her umbrella, she climbed up a high fire escape ladder with a cat-like agility. She crept up silently until she reached the roof. Taking a few steps from the edge, she took a deep breath and jumped the gaps between roofs. Parkour was a skill she excelled at, her flexibility really giving her an advantage. Strapped to her back was a case, riding awkwardly between her shoulder blades. She would love to drop it right there, but it was a critical piece. To anyone looking from the ground, she would just be a blur of black against a gray sky. They would think nothing of it, which is exactly what she wanted.

When she reached the right building, she peeled off the slightly wet hoodie and sweatpants as the rain slowed down. A tiny amount of sun poked through the clouds, giving her a clear view of the street. All that was left on her was a skin-tight black leather suit. Besides a mop of bright red hair and piercing green eyes, she blended in well with the dark sky. The discarded clothes were left in a pile at the edge of the roof, forgotten. She sat on the brick edge of the roof, observing the diner across the street where her target sat.

Her target was a high ranking Red Room officer, turned traitor. He knew enough information able to shut the whole program down with just one whisper. She dreamed of the day that the Red Room was gone, but she wouldn't live to see that day. The ending of the program meant getting rid of all the participants, including herself. He had set a meeting with an official from the Hungarian Police. That's where she stepped in. Her superiors had wanted her to get the job done quickly, instead of using her normal routine. That consisted of going undercover, getting to know the target up close and personal. After gathering all the information, it was time to end it, without a trace. Except for this mission. This kill was simple. Find the target, get in range. Take. Him. Out.

* * *

Set on what seemed to be a completely different mission, the young man climbed up the wall of the diner, using the bricks as handholds. Once on top, he sprinted behind a giant air vent on the roof for cover. He spotted a red blur move across the roof of the building across his. He wasn't told much about his mission. He knew there was a meeting in the diner. An informant was giving information to the Hungarian authorities dangerous secrets, and he knew the lady was sent to kill him. The general population assumed that an assassin was a man's job. The only difference was that he knew with the proper training, a woman could be the same deadly assassin. That's one of the reasons he respected women. It's not very hard to respect a woman that made it her mission to kill you.

He had been sent to kill the Black Widow, the woman on the roof. She was one of, maybe even the most deadly assassin in the world. She could take out military leaders, presidents, entire governments in the blink of an eye. No one dared to face her. Countries had sent their best assassins to try and kill her, and they had been sent back the heads. There was no evidence that the Widow did it, it was just assumed to be too big of a coincidence. He was an assassin as well, up there with the best of them. The only exception being he worked for the good guys, SHIELD. Strategic Homeland Intervention, Enforcement, and Logistics Division. The organization dedicated to keeping peace. The director, Nick Fury had sent him because he was one of the best agents. That part that made him so special was that he never missed. He wasn't your regular assassin, either. Instead of using long-range rifles to snipe or silenced handguns, his chosen weapon was a bow and arrow. His eyesight was nearly perfect, and that was where his code name came from, Hawkeye. His real name? Clint Barton. Did she need to know that? No.

He pulled his collapsible bow out of its case and slid his quiver down into a holder on his back until it clicked in place. His specially made arrows sticking out of the top, dark maroon fletchings matching his suit. He silently jumped off the diner roof, hitting the ground without a noise. At the same time, the Black Widow set up her sniper rifle, a gun she did not particularly enjoy using. She preferred pistols, and smaller weapons, like knives. But this was what the job required. Today, she took her time setting up, laying out all the pieces of the rifle on a towel, before slowly putting them together to make the final product. In a regular mission, she could put it together in less than five seconds. Now, for the first time, Black Widow had an easy assignment.

* * *

Climbing the back of the diner, Agent Barton could see her. The Black Widow. He was surprised he was even able to sneak up on her. So he made sure to be extra quiet, careful not to do anything that would grab her attention. Black Widow knew there was a person behind her. She always had to be aware of her surroundings, it was part of her training. But whoever the figure was, they must've had some of the same training; before she could turn around to face them, an arrow was shot at her.

At first, she was shocked. An arrow? What was this, the Renaissance She barely had enough time to dodge it before it lodged into the backside of the gun barrel, rendering it useless. She swore in Russian while pulling two pistols out of her waistband and shot at him, then diving behind one of the AC vents on the roof. He had the same idea, on the opposite side. Black Widow had to admit though, he was a pretty good shot. But she was better. That's how she was trained. To find your opponent and become better. One question filled her mind as they traded shots. Who did he work for? He couldn't have worked for the Red Room, because that was only girls, and he didn't seem like an officer. An officer would've confronted her, and shot her, execution style.

 _"Who do you work for?"_ She shouted to him in Russian. In Budapest, the natives spoke Hungarian, but she was more comfortable with her own native language.

A pause, then he replied, _"Nobody you need to know."_

His Russian was good, but not good enough. It was close, but he didn't have the same speech pattern as some of the native speakers. With practice, she guessed he would become quite good. But it wasn't her concern. In total, that meant he wasn't from Russia like she originally thought. He released another arrow and dove behind an air vent, out of sight. There was a quick silence as both sides reloaded their weapons, and the Black Widow could hear he opponent talking to someone on the other side. Pieces of the conversation were missing, given she could only hear the archer's words.

" _Nick Fury to Hawkeye. Hawkeye, come over._ " Fury called to Agent Barton over comms.

Barton was pressed up against the back of the air vent, breathing hard. "Siempre en el momento equivocado _-Hawkeye here._ " He mumbled under his breath as he pulled out more arrows. Fury always called at the worst possible times.

" _Barton cut the Spanish, I can still understand you. Have you taken out the Black Widow yet_?" Nick sighed. Barton was one of his best agents, he didn't need to lose him just like everyone had. It was a risky mission, Fury knew, but he also knew that Barton could handle it.

 _"The fight is in progress, sir, you've got me at a pretty bad time. Neither of us seem to be getting headway, over."_ Fury rubbed his hands over his face from the safety of his office.

 _"Well, get it done. After this, there will be no more contact. Just get to the coordinates and we will pick you up then."_

" _Copy that, sir_." Barton tapped his comm, ending the call. He looked around, bow in hand, and realized he had lost sight of her. He swore at himself for being so stupid. Barton heard movement behind him, and his senses heightened. Without turning around, his arm snaked back into his quiver and picked out a special arrow. He whipped around and took the shot, the arrow hitting its mark. He could hear a slight ringing from where it struck the metal of the vent. A net released from the arrowhead at the same time, tangling the Black Widow inside. As she struggled with the net, he nocked another arrow, preparing to let it fly.

"You don't have the guts," She growled in English this time, reading his body language. She didn't believe he would let the arrow go, he didn't look like that type of man. Not like some of the other men she met. Agent Barton pulled the arrow back further, and she smiled evilly, thinking she had got under his skin. She couldn't help herself, it was her speciality.

 _One shot_ , Baron thought. One shot, and his mission would be over. Months of planning and preparation, with one shot he would go back to the SHIELD base a hero. He'd be the agent who took down the Black Widow. His eyes steeled and his body tensed, ready to take the kill shot. Black Widow relaxed, knowing that the intimidation failed, and he was going to kill her. But she was ready. She had failed her mission, and she would much rather die by stranger-a quick death. If she returned to the Red Room, she would be subject to the slow and painful death by torture.

She stared at him, green eyes locking on grey. It was the most unusual color of eyes. It was like grey clouds swirled together, blocking the little bit of blue that peeked out behind it. What amazing details people notice when they were staring down the face of death.

"What's your name?" He asked. The Black Widow just stared, confused. He dropped his bow and put the arrow back in his quiver, staring down at her. Barton didn't know what he was doing, but he couldn't kill her.

"What?" She stuttered, in udder surprise. There were a billion different questions he could've asked her. 'What happens in the Red Room?' 'Where is your base?' 'How many people are there?' Instead, he asked the one question that nobody had ever asked in her entire life.

"You are the Black Widow, everybody knows that. No one knows your real name." He said, pacing back in forth in front of her. Black widow watched him carefully, her fingertips curling around the net. The man was tall, a dark suit and pants were highlighted by strips of maroon, accented by laced-up combat boots and knee pads. A quiver was slung over his shoulder, a gun in a holster strapped to his thigh. In his right hand, he held a bow, an arm guard covering his arm guard. On his left was a finger guard, that fist squeezing over and over again. A sleeveless top exposed muscular arms, defined along with the rest of his body by years of training.

"Yes, and I intend on keeping it that way," She growled and her plan was thrown into action. She ripped off the net, freeing herself from out from the tangled rope. The man noticed this and had nocked an arrow and shot it had her, in a matter of seconds. She dodge it, the arrow narrowly missing her chest. The Black Widow was back on her feet before he could even nock another arrow. She grabbed the bow out of his hand and delivered a kick to the back of his leg, bringing him to his knees. Taken by surprise and off balance, she punched him in the jaw. The man fell on his back, dazed. Black Widow packed a punch; she was also pure brawn behind that beauty. The rough roof dug into his back and head as the Black Widow crawled onto his chest, straddling him. She held his own arrow to Barton's throat, the tip almost touching skin.

"Who do you work for? What do you want from me?!" She hissed, pushing the tip of the arrow closer to his neck

Barton didn't look phased at all. Natasha looked in his eyes, flicking back and forth, looking for any sign of fear or worry. In lightning speed, his hand snuck behind her back and he grabbed the bottoms of her wavy red hair, pulling it down hard. She cried out, distracted, and he used her disadvantage to switch their position. Barton now kneeled over Black Widow, one leg on her stomach, pinning her to the ground. Barton never really fought clean, but then again, neither did she. All in the life of an assassin. The Black Widow looked up at him, only to see him smirking a god-awful smile.

He was quiet for a moment, before asking again. "Can you answer my question?"

She paused, judging her options. She could lie, or she could tell the truth. Or part of it. She didn't like either option. But giving a little information in return for something else, to then kill him was all part of her job. Small sacrifices for the job.

"Natasha Romanoff. Now answer _my_ question. Who do you work for?" She demanded, not as quiet as he had asked. She stared at him with harden eyes, made from years of killing. His didn't have the same look of killing at all. They were, sympathetic. "Can you maybe put down your arrow?" She asked, changing her tone to try and play on that sympathy. Barton squinted slightly, feeling uneasy and the arrow pointing at her neck loosened a little bit.

"Okay." After being silent in his own thoughts, Barton figured out how he wanted to play things. Barton could feel something different about her, and he didn't want to kill her. Something was off, she felt like a real person, as opposed to some of the other assassins he had gone up against. So he was going to try something he had never done before.

"How about a bet?" Romanoff stared at him for the second time that day in complete surprise. This man was different, she knew it. Maybe he was different enough to actually consider listening to and not killing.

"Let's hear it," She smirked. She was good at betting, it almost always worked out in her favor. Barton walked over to the edge of the roof, looking out above the market below them. Romanoff followed slowly behind him, one hand resting on the top of her gun on her hip. He may have put up his weapons, but she wanted to be sure that if the time came, hers were out and ready to use. Silently, he pointed out into the busy square and she followed his finger until she found the stall he was pointing at. Way down at the end of the street was a watermelon vendor, the stall keeper talking to a customer while a large watermelon rested in his hands. Romanoff looked at Barton who smiled cockily and shook her head, judging the distance. It was way too far away to be possible.

"If I can hit that watermelon in the trader's hand, you have to at least hear me out. Listen, just for a little bit, and maybe you can come back with me." Barton didn't actually know what he was going to do. It was a long shot-not the watermelon, but being able to talk her into not killing him, joining him. He was breaking about seven different SHIELD protocols even to just _consider_ bringing the assassin he was supposed to kill, back with him.

"And if you miss?" Romanoff asked, curious. She didn't know what direction this was going. The man felt unusually comfortable with her, she was not used to it. She honestly didn't even know why she was still there, she could've just killed him right then and left. But she had missed her target, so the Red Room was going to be looking for her. Maybe it was about time she had some help, so she could have the actual possibility of escape. Escaping was her dream that was always just out of reach. Maybe she could use this to benefit herself, use his resources to help herself disappear.

Barton spread his arms out wide as if he was inviting people into his life, his secrets, opening himself up completely. "Then you kill me."

Romanoff's mouth went slightly agape, he didn't looked bothered at all by his own statement. No one she had ever met had been so willing to die, especially for an impossible shot. Quickly, she changed her mouth into a sneer. "You better not miss," she taunted.

"I never miss."

Romanoff's corner of her mouth turned up ever so slightly so it resembled a smile at the immediate answer; the cocky way he held himself and his confidence that he would make the shot. He pulled his bow off his shoulder and held it out in front of him, so it almost looked like a flat table. After an arrow was pulled from his quiver and nocked onto the bow string, he brought the bow up and drew it back, so the string was tight and the fletchings were brushing the corner of his mouth. He aimed downwards, one knee up on the brick edge of the roof while the other still connected to the gravel. Barton breathed in a out slowly, watching the ground intensely.

One second the arrow was there, the next it wasn't. Romanoff leaned forward against the edge of the roof to get a better look, and she saw a terrified shop keeper holding a large watermelon with an arrow sticking out of it. She turned back to the man with a look of slight awe on her face, and he smiled. He put the bow back in its place on his shoulder and leaned back against an air vent.

"So. I work for S.H.I.E.L.D and I was sent to kill you."


	2. Chapter 2

"Why?" Romanoff asked for the eight time that night. She was laying on a hotel bed in her hoodie and sweatpants she had left at the edge of the roof. After Barton had given her the rundown on who he was, what he was doing, and what his options were for her. He had given her a choice. Stay on the run, being in hiding from the Red Room for the rest of our lives. Or to come with him, and have a possibility of a new, better life. Barton had found a cheap hotel so they had someplace to stay the night.

"There's a different time and place for that." He answered plainly, the same answer every time she asked. Romanoff didn't understand. He had explained that it was his mission to kill her, and he didn't. He told her about himself and the place and worked for, and even brought her back to his hideout. Romanoff couldn't even trust herself sometimes, yet this man wanted to not only trust her but get to know her. She wanted to take his offer, it would be a nice change to escape from the Red Room. But the Red Room would _always_ find her, it would only be a matter of time. It was her choice if she wanted to stay and have Barton killed along with her, or kill him and run away herself. Either option, Barton ended up dead at some point.

He stood at the dresser near a window, in a pair of sweats and a t-shirt that he "borrowed" from the lost and found. Romanoff stared at his back as the voices inside her head fought over what to do. She told herself to stay, to hope and see if she could escape the Red Room. But her instincts and training told her she had no hope, and screamed at her to use the knife she had hidden in her sweatpants. All she had to do is go up behind him and cut his throat. The quickest kill ever. Barton wasn't paying attention, he was cleaning his bow and arrows that were spread out on the countertop.

' _Do it now!_ ' the voices hissed at her, and Romanoff's training took over. She wouldn't make this painful, just quick and then run. Maybe she would sell the information he had shared with her. But now she had to watch out for the Red Room because she didn't kill her target. She had failed in her mission, and she had become the next mission. They would come and kill her. She knew that they had already found out and started searching for her already.

Acting purely on instinct, Romanoff silent got off the bed, unsheathed her knife and snuck up behind Barton. Her bare feet padded the ground, not making a noise with the carpet, and stopped when she was directly behind him. She switched the knife to her right hand and immediately grabbed his shoulder with her left, dragging him back towards her. Her knife hand came down right next to his throat until her hand got caught on something.

To her surprise Barton had caught her hand before it broke the skin and twisted her wrist around, forcing her to drop the knife. He kicked the knife towards the wall, out of her reach. Not giving her any time to act, Barton dropped to his knee and pulled her arm around her back, standing back up while shoving her arm behind her back painfully. He pushed her forward until she hit the wall, head connecting with the drywall, immobilizing her.

"What was that!?" Barton got right down next to her ear and shouted, swearing when she didn't answer. Barton held her in that position as the tension in the room pulsed which each heartbeat, before slowly releasing her. As soon as she was free, Romanoff spun around and stared wildly at Barton, the two assassins facing off. Romanoff growled, still not thinking straight and her fist clenched and unclenched at her sides, wanting to hit something.

"Don't make me fight you," Barton said quietly, but Romanoff wanted to. She had enough. Why was this man treating her like a normal being? She wasn't. She was a monster, a relentless killing machine. She burst forward, a fisted aimed for his head, all the anger and rage put behind it. Barton calmly side-stepped it, and her punched went directly through the drywall, catching her fist. The sudden pain helped her focus, and Romanoff calmed down for a minute. Barton noticed and slowly approached her. He met her eyes, his hands raised in the air as she bared her teeth. She watched him with a quiet growl growing in the back of her throat as he reached for her hand, gently pulling it out of the wall; his eye contact never breaking. When she was free, Romanoff stared at Barton expecting signs of anger, but instead, she saw compassion.

"What was that?" He asked again, softer this time. Romanoff didn't know what she was feeling. She had tried to kill him, right after she had given him her word that she wouldn't, and he wasn't angry at her. She felt something right from the pit of her stomach, almost like a twinge of guilt.

Romanoff struggled to put the words together in a way that made sense. "Training, I don't know, took over, and I couldn't-"

Barton cut her off before she could finish. "No excuses." He said seriously.

"Last chance. Kill me, right now. Run back to your Red Room or whatever and go. Or stay here, with me, hang on for one more night and then we can go. I'll introduce you to SHIELD, and you can stay there."

Barton crossed his arms and stared at the Black Widow as she thought about it.

"Okay."

Barton let out a sigh of relief, and Romanoff felt slightly relieved as well, but she didn't totally understand why. Without any more talking, the two assassins went to their beds, Romanoff the one twin sized bed and Barton on the couch with a spare blanket and pillow.

* * *

In the middle of the night, Barton awoke to the buzz of a text alert from Fury. It was the details of his next mission, a short-and-sweet little errand he was supposed to take care of after he killed the Black Widow. Barton rolled out of bed and silently moved around their room, gathering his things. When he was at his bow case, and one latch was too loud and in an instant, Romanoff was up.

She leaped at Barton and he tumbled to the floor, her hands at his throat. "Where are you going?" She asked coldly. Barton just put his hands up in the air, gesturing he meant no harm.

"Relax, Romanoff." She released her hands but remained where she was on top of him while he explained.

"I just got a text from Fury. I have my next mission. I was going to let you sleep in."

Romanoff got off from on top of him but growled in his direction. "Next time, wake me up," Barton mumbled something underneath his breath and Romanoff didn't bother trying to ask what it as.

"Where are we going?" She asked, slipping behind a door to change int her Black Widow suit as Barton finished gathering his things. He froze when she stepped out. The suit was slick, midnight black with a black belt and red hourglass in the middle of it. Compartments hung off the belt, along with gun holsters on each thigh. It was clearer to see now than it was fighting on the roof.

"We?" He snorted, and Romanoff put her hands on her hips. "There is no we. You're staying here. I need to run a quick errand." He made his way to the door with Romanoff right on his heels.

"You tell me you're going to help me escape then run out on me? I don't think so. I'm coming." She said forcefully, pushing past him and through the doorway. Romanoff stomped down the hallway, turning left and started to head in that direction.

Barton watched amused, standing in the doorway. He leaned up against the doorframe with a smirk on his face. "Romanoff."

"What?" He hissed, turning around on her heel.

Wrong way, sweetheart." Barton laughed as Romanoff growled, cheeks flushed slightly, barely noticeable. She should've just killed him and left. Barton jogged up behind her to catch up, and they headed up towards the roof. When they got up there, he stopped at the edge and looked out, the barely lit town showing the full beauty of the night sky.

"It's beautiful, isn't it?" He said, almost a whisper.

"Sure," Romanoff said tiredly. "What are we doing, so we can just get back?"

Barton didn't answer and looked out for a minute more, but suddenly pulled out an arrow out of his quiver and shot it across the street, sticking into the brick of the opposite building. A taut wire hanging off from the back of the arrow connected the two buildings, and Barton tested its strength.

"We gotta steal some intel, grab on." He motioned for her to grab onto the wire, it would slide down to the other building. Before Barton pushed off onto the makeshift zip line, he turned around and faced Romanoff.

"You know, I've met you before."

 _She stared at the man with her hands on her hips. Grey eyes met hers, and she took in the sight. His dirty blond hair was disheveled, any remaining gel sticking up in the unnatural direction. His sleeveless suit exposed muscular arms, years of training and working out. Those arms were littered with cuts and bruises, one shoulder looking dislocated. His suit was ripped and tattered, blood staining areas where a knife had slashed him. A small line of blood ran down from his temple, tinting a small portion of his hair red. She had enough._

" _You're lying."_

"What?" Romanoff exclaimed, but Barton had already taken off down the line. Romanoff swore under her breathe and jumped after him, letting the line propel her across the street and through a broken window of the building. Barton was already inside, bow drawn, scanning the area. Romanoff had never worked with him before, but she knew enough about group stealth to know what to do. She placed her hand gently on his shoulder, signaling she was inside before dropping her a knee and pulled out her own gun. They watched the doorway for a minute before Barton made one final check of the room. "Clear."

 _She accused casually. The man stared at her, shocked. He pulled forward slightly until the ropes that pulled his arms behind his back wouldn't let him move anymore. "Seriously? I'm in no position to lie to you right now," He nodded his head at the flashing red numbers duct taped to his chest, wires running to a box sitting on his lap. "I'm strapped to a_ bomb _for crying out loud. I'll tell you anything if you get me out of here!" He pleaded, getting more desperate as the numbers hit thirty seconds left. She crossed her arms, debating on what do do. He was in no way related to her mission. She had stumbled into his room where some local terrorists were beating him. She had no loyalty to this man, she owed him nothing. But, something about him made her want to drop everything and help him._

"What did you say before?" Romanoff demanded as they both dropped their weapons, and Barton immediately started going through desk drawers, searching for the intel. He raised one eyebrow in confusion but didn't look up

"Clear?" Romanoff groaned.

"No, not clear, before that!" Barton made an affirmative noise as he pulled out a manila folder and shut the drawer, looking back up at the assassin who stood in front of him. "Oh yeah, we've met before."

 _The timer beeps louder as the numbers hit fifteen. "Please?" He asked softly, all joking manner aside. She threw her hands up into the air and let out an exasperated breath._

" _For the love of-fine! Just stop begging."_

 _She walked over and pressed a button on the top of the black box, the red flashing numbers freezing, stopping the countdown. The man's mouth dropped open._

" _You've got to be kidding me," he said as the woman started to unplug the wires and tape. "That's all it took?" The woman looked up from her work for a second to give a small smile, before whipping out a knife and slicing through the ropes that bound his arms and legs._

Barton backed towards the doorway, again without any explanation to his own words. He poked his head out and looked down the hallway, looking for people, before stuffing the folder under his arm and walking back towards the window. Before he could reach it, Romanoff stepped in front of him, stopping him in his tracks.

"Barton. Explain," She growled.

 _She gave him a hand up, and he stumbled, falling forward groaning. She caught him before he hit the floor, his eyes squeezed shut. "Come on," she grunted as she lifted his around and placed it over her shoulders, carrying his weight. "Let's go." The man looked up as they left the room, staring into the mess of red hair._

" _I'm Clint. Thanks for saving my butt."_

 _The red-head gave a half smile. "No problem, Clint."_

So Barton told her the story of her walking in on him while he was strapped to the bomb, and she stood there, flabbergasted.

"That was you?" She asked in disbelief, and he nodded.

"You actually saved my life that day. I remembered you when I was about to kill you this morning. That's why I couldn't do it," Barton confessed, and Romanoff saw movement over his shoulder.

"Clint, look out!" She shouted and pushed him down to the ground. Behind him a guy appeared in the doorway, gun drawn. But Romanoff was faster. She pulled out her gun and shot twice, both of them hitting the criminal in the head. Barton stood back up, staring over the man until he looked back at Romanoff.

"Thanks, Natasha."

She nodded and they went back to the hotel, not before she got a quick look over the body, which confirmed her worst fears. It was Red Room, they were already coming after her. When they got back, the assassins made sure the intel was safe, and they crawled under the covers and went to sleep.

* * *

The next morning Natasha woke up, throwing the covers off her bed and yawned. She expected to be the first one up, but to her surprise, Clint was already awake and on the couch flipping through TV channels. All of them were news, covering the stock market crash in Hungary, and angry protesters yelling at the cameras in Hungarian about some new political crisis.

"There isn't anything less depressing on," He said as if he could read her mind. She was just about to question his choice of TV. It was kind of creepy.

Trying not to think about what happened the last night, she just nodded. "You sleep alright?" she asked, more of a break from the unnatural silence than legitimately asking.

He nodded. "You?"

"Yeah." She sat on the couch, bring her knees up to her chest and curling next to the arm, as far away from Clint as possible. They may have spent a full 24 hours together, that doesn't necessarily meant that she trusted him.

"Really? The master assassin never has any nightmares or anything?"

Natasha gave a knowing smirk. "Woah, slow down cowboy. We ain't there yet." Clint chuckled before they both went back into a lapse of silence as Clint stared at the TV, and Natasha at the wall.

"Alright, well we only have one thing to, and that's to get to the extraction point and head back to base." He sighed. "Then I have to explain to Fury why I didn't kill you." This was not going to be easy nor fun. Natasha sighed and let her knees fall from their crunched up position to her sides, so she was sitting criss-cross.

"You know, that's not going to be your only problem. The Red Room is after me, so they're coming after you too." Natasha said, standing up grabbing a towel, headed towards the bathroom.

"How do you know?" Clint asked, shutting off the TV to turn and look at Natasha. Natasha rubbed a hand over her face and pinched the bridge of her nose.

"I saw them. Last night." Clint's eyebrows furrowed in confusion and she explained. "The man who shot at you last night, he was Red Room. I am a liability. Now you're going to be in danger too."

"I'm willing to take that chance," Clint said with a cocky grin and Natasha rolled her eyes. She gathered some clothes from her part of the room, along with a few toiletries.

She went in and closed the door behind her, "I'm going to take a shower." She needed a few minutes alone. A nice, hot shower would help her process thoughts.

"Don't use all the hot wat-" Three sharp knocks cut Clint off and he stared at the door.

Natasha came out of the bathroom looking confused.

"Were you expecting anyone?" Clint whispered, barely audible. She shook her head, and Clint didn't know who it was either. After the knock was met by a stony silence, the voice on the other side of the door tried again.

"Housekeeping," the voice was muffled but understandable. It definitely didn't sound like anybody doing at a housekeeping job at a run-down motel. Clint shook his head, and Natasha understood. These were not people they were expecting, so it should be considered a threat. Clint pointed two fingers, one at himself and then at the back of the couch, then at Natasha towards the side of a dresser. Like clockwork, the assassins moved, Clint to the couch and Natasha to the dresser.

"We're good, thanks," Clint called out and watched the door carefully from around the couch.

Instead of an answer, gunshots broke through the door, forcing Clint and Natasha to keep their heads down. Three burly men in body armor kicked down the bullet-ridden door and crashed into the room. Clint dove backward, grabbing the weapons off the counter behind him. He slid a gun off to Natasha and kept his bow and quiver for himself. His bow snapped open while Natasha shot three times at one man, and he collapsed.

"You guys don't really look like maids you know. Where are the black dresses and the white aprons? And those frilly hats? You guys would look really cute." Clint quipped, barely able to keep a smile off his face. Natasha, on the other hand, was grim and facing the situation at hand.

Clint grabbed a special arrow, nocked it and shot it at the man in the middle, piercing the middle of the man's kevlar vest. A small explosion from the arrow knocked him down. Natasha took care of the last man, a single shot to the head. Clint and Natasha stood up together, their weapons trained on the downed men.

"I'm going check 'em, cover me," Clint said as he dropped his bow. He stepped out from behind the couch, intending to check their pulse.

"Clint, no!" Natasha stepping out from behind the dresser and took a swipe at his arm, trying to pull him back. But she missed him by inches. As soon as he as out in the open, one of the men Clint thought was dead raised his arm up, holding a pistol. Before Clint had a chance to react, the guard got off two shots. One hit Clint in the shoulder and he dropped and the other aimed at Natasha, but she ducked behind the wood before it hit her. Instant she was back out with her gun and shot him in the head. His arm dropped and she ran over, kicked the gun out of his hand. For good measure, she put another bullet in each of their heads.

"They're never really dead," Natasha whispered to herself, repeating the mantra she had created for herself as an assassin. She let her gun hit the ground and dropped to her knees at Clint's side, she inspected the wound. He laid on the ground, eyes shut and teeth gritting against the pain. Natasha gently prodded the area around the wound, and Clint groaned. It was a clean shot, through and through in his left shoulder. It was a couple of inches away from his heart, but it didn't hit anything vital.

' _Leave now! Run away, get out of here. Save yourself!'_ Her mind screamed at her. It wanted her to make her escape, and she had to force herself from running away. She ran into the bathroom and grabbed a couple towels off the rack.

"Barton," she said as she took Clint's other hand and made him push the towel against his shoulder to slow the bleeding. He groaned against the sudden pressure and tried to curl inward, but Natasha held him down. "Don't move. Open your eyes, look at me." She commanded, and grey eyes met hers. She checked his eyes, looking for signs of glazing or dulling. There was nothing yet.

"We have to move. The Red Room will send more people," Clint just groaned. Natasha understood, getting shot was no fun-she had too much experience with that herself, but his groaning was really starting to get on her nerves. She looked around the room, trying to find anything to help out. "Barton, do you have first aid kit?"

Clint nodded grimly. "There's one inside my bow case." Natasha jumped up and grabbed it out of the case.

"It won't be enough. We really should go to a doctor." Clint said between breaths. He pressed his hand down on the towel, as hard as he could manage.

"No," Natasha argued, pulling out a bottle of pills and a little pad of gauze. She read the label on the bottle and shook the contents. There were about seven painkillers left. They would have to make do. "If they can find me here, going someplace like a hospital would put us out in the open even more and we can't have that. We need to find somewhere else to go. Now man up and stop stalling." She lifted up the now-red towel and frown at the amount of blood. At least it looked like it was slowing down.

"You know what I have to do, right?" Natasha said, and Clint nodded. Natasha blew air out of her lips and looked around the small room, where her eyes landed on the mini fridge in the corner. She ran over and swung open the door, thanking the Lord when she found little bottles of alcohol.

Clint grunted as Natasha dragged him from the center of the room and propped him up against the wall. She grabbed her knife and made a cut down his shirt so she could pull it off without moving his arm. She grabbed the bottle of painkillers and shook some out into his hand, where he swallowed them dry.

"This isn't going to be pleasant," Natasha said wearily, watching Clint.

He took a couple deep breaths before relaxing all the muscles in his body, "I know. Do it." Natasha popped off the caps of two alcohols and gave on to Clint. He chugged it, letting the strong liquor burn down his throat, numbing his mind and body. He knew it wasn't going to do a lot, but it might take the edge off for a while. Natasha took the second one and poured it on his shoulder, trying to get rid of the infection with what they had. Clint gritted his teeth, and pressed his head into the back of the wall, trying to get the pain under control. The glass bottle in his hand shattered into pieces when he squeezed it too hard, leaving broken glass on the ground. After a minute the pain went from being on fire to a small burning, down enough where he could function again. Natasha didn't have enough time to give him stitches, she could only grab a fresh towel and press it against both sides, wrapping gauze around the shoulder.

"We need to get out of here. They will be more." Natasha said as she put Clint's good arm around her shoulders to help him up. Clint just mumbled incoherently.

Natasha led Clint to the front door when she remembered that he didn't have a shirt on. There would be too many questions from the general public if they went out as they did: Clint bloodied and without a shirt, being carried along by Natasha. The rumors would gain the Red Room's attention, something they didn't need. So they doubled back and got a shirt on him after a few tries, and Natasha grabbed their gear, and they left the hotel.

* * *

Clint was walking through Natasha, her holding him being the only thing that kept him on his feet. The ground swayed before his eyes, and his legs crossed in front of each other. He had gotten shot before, many times in fact. But it wasn't easier the more it happened, it was just plain annoying. The pain, the inability to move the injured place, the basic tasks that take hours just to complete, the inconvenience. It was just annoying. So Natasha was doing the work, with a tight grip on his arm she scanned the area, looking for anything that could be used to duck down into and get some real medical attention. Even while his vision was blurry and double, Clint recognized the area. Without looking at Natasha, Clint stage whispered what he knew.

"There's a SHIELD safe house up here in the slums. The last time I was here it was not fun. I can't believe I'm back again. Take a left at this street right here."

Natasha half smiled and kept moving in the direction Clint had pointed.

Natasha and Clint drudged along for another fifteen minutes until they finally found the safe house hidden deep inside the slums. It looked exactly like the others, with a roof barely holding on and shabby walls. The painkillers and alcohol had worn off of Clint recently, and he was feeling the effects. Life was clearing, not so much swaying, but the pain was big enough to bring him to his knees. After Clint confirmed it was the same house, Natasha hurried as fast as she could with all of their gear and Clint hanging off her. She was tired and ready to just get inside the safe house. Before they reached the front door, she froze in her, stopping all movement as she watching the lame attempt for windows. It was a hole cut out in the paneling, covered by a sheer black cloth.

Clint slipped his arm off her shoulder and held his injured arm close to his chest to keep it from moving. "What's wrong?" He asked.

Suddenly, a bald, heavily armed man pushed back the cloth and looked out the window. Natasha pushed Clint into a doorway of one of the slum houses, and jumped after him, hoping they got out of sight before the guard had seen them. Clint landed on his bad shoulder and cried out, grabbing the attention of the single mom and her family that lived inside of their house. They were sitting at the attempt of a kitchen table, staring open-mouthed at the injured man and woman that had just forced their way into their house. The woman looked like she was about to scream, and Natasha poked her head out of the doorway, watching as the guard stepped out from the shack and walked around in front. Natasha pulled herself back in and immediately drew her gun, aiming it at the mom and her three young kids.

" _Quiet. Act normal."_ She commanded in Hungarian, terrifying the family. Clint glared up at Natasha, who backed up against the wall, but he followed suit. Clint looked back at the family, and held up his hand, trying to calm them down.

" _It's ok, we're the good guys. Please, just don't let him know we're here."_ The terrified mom nodded and wiped her eyes, turning to her kids and talking to them in Hungarian. They were scared as well, but they listened to their mother. The lady hid her shaking hands underneath the table when the Red Room guard suddenly poked his head inside the room. Clint and Natasha were pressed up against the wall, being as still as possible to avoid attention and the family in front of them acted as normal as they possibly could. After a moment the guard backed away and Natasha let out a breath of relief. Clint sighed as well, holding his hand up for Natasha to pull him up. She did and Clint thanked the family for being calm and not giving away their position. Natasha drew her gun and cleared the doorway, looking for signs of the guard.

When it was clear, Natasha pressed herself up against the shack's wall across from the safe house, which was now crawling with guards. Clint looked around the corner to get a look for himself and then placed himself right next to Natasha. He held his arm while she kept her arms close to her body, gun pointing towards the ground. Taking a moment to catch their breath, Clint huffed air out of his mouth and Natasha looked over.

"You need to say something?"

Clint side-eyed her and looked like he was in disbelief. "Yeah, I do. What was that? I get we had to move out of sight but you could've at least pushed me so I didn't fall on this shoulder."

"Stop complaining, I did what I had to," Natasha said and rolled her eyes. While he had been busy complaining, Natasha formulated a plan in her head, hoping that it would work. "Are you done now? I have a plan."

Clint shut his mouth and pouted, but listened. Quickly she explained what she had planned out, and no more than two minutes later, Clint and Natasha were pressed up against the wall of the house on either side of the door. The 'door' was just an opening in the wall, big enough for a man to slip through. Natasha held onto her gun and tossed Clint her other one, he held with uncomfortably with his right hand. Being left hand dominant, his right hand was able to control and handle weapons, but it was not his best. On Natasha's count of three, the assassins burst in the door, guns firing into the little shack. The two guards that were hanging around inside were hit and fell to the ground.

Natasha walked over to the two guards and stared over their bodies. Clint kept his gun drawn while Natasha looked over them, taking every minute to study their faces. Suddenly, shots rang out and Clint looked over at the Black Widow, who had put two new holes into the foreheads of the guard. Clint looked at Natasha and she shrugged. "They're never really dead," was her only explanation.

After that room was cleared, they dragged the two dead men and piled them up in the corner of the room. Clint kept watch of the big room and the front door while Natasha did a sweep of the hallway that led away from that room. She crouched and scanned the hallway first, taking note of what was where. There were two other doors in the hallway, one on the left right next to her, and one on the right near the end of the hall. She crept forward, gun in front of her, and twisted the door handled. She swung around inside, and there was nobody there, just a closet.

Then she followed the wall down the rest of the hallway and reached the other door, stopping right outside of the doorway. She heard noises from behind the door and took a step forward, but whoever was behind the door heard her as well. Before she could move, a gunshot rang out and she pressed up against the shabby walls, searching for any form of protection.

The bullets flew everywhere, the shooter just firing all around. Two of the bullets found their mark in her thigh and she cried out, crumpling to the ground. Her leg burned, but her spot on the ground gave her a good vantage point. She lined the sight of her gun through one of the holes in the wall from the bullet and shot the man as he walked by. After he fell to the ground unmoving, Natasha crawled to the open doorway and shot in the head a couple more times, making sure he was dead. Then she dropped her gun and brought her one leg up close to her, leaving her injured one stretched out in front of her. She had been hit twice, and unfortunately, they weren't through and through, the bullets were still inside her. She swore under her breath when more gunshots rang out back where Clint was, surprising her.

Natasha grit her teeth as she stood up, putting as little weight as she possibly could on her leg and used the wall to help walk down the hallway. She hobbled as fast as she could, hearing Clint call out, "Romanoff! First guy's back!"

' _Crap.'_

Bursting through the hallway, she found Clint fighting over a small round object with the guard from before, and losing fast. She aimed her gun at the guard, waiting for a moment where she had a clear shot, but they were rolling around too much. She tried again, this time lunging for Clint, but before she could, the man hit the button on the object and a very large burst of pressurized gas knocked everything back. The guard and Clint were the closest and were thrown back the farthest. Clint hit the front wall and his head slammed against the metal, rendering him unconscious. He fell to the ground and laid their, half on the ground and half leaning against the wall. The guard was thrown to the opposite side, hitting the wall as well. Natasha was even knocked back into the hallway, her thigh on fire. She bit her lip hard enough to draw blood to keep from screaming.

From her position, she had a clear shot at the guard and she took it, creating a neat little bullet hole in the middle of his forehead. She sighed with relief because she recognized the device he had used. It looked like a grenade, its appearance solely meant to scare the targets, but it was full of pressurized gas instead of explosive powder, strong enough to knock the targets into unconsciousness. After deploying the air grenade, the backup Red Room would come in and grab the target, to bring them into their base for questioning. 'Questioning' was really just a nicer Red Room term for torture. That was good. That meant they weren't trying to kill her. Yet.

She groaned as she stood up and limped her way over to Clint. She placed two fingers against his neck, checking for a pulse. It was there. Small and weak, but there. She sighed with relief. It would be no use to run from the Red Room if the man who promised her freedom was dead.

Natasha looked around the shack, looking for the 'safe house' Clint had said was there. There was nothing on the surface level. But when she looked inside the closet she had checked earlier, there was a trap door hidden in the dirt on the floor. She drew her gun, and swung open the door, and peeked around inside, making sure it was clear. It looked like an emergency bunker, or the safe house Clint had talked about.

She went back out to grab Clint, hoping he was awake so he could move. But he wasn't. So Natasha grabbed him by his good arm and pulled him along the ground into the closet. He was a lot heavier when he was dead weight, and it didn't help that Natasha was limited to only one leg. They finally made it into the bunker, and Natasha shut and locked the door behind them.

By the time Natasha had dropped him into one of the cots, Clint had started to stir. He moaned and tried to sit up, but gave up when his head hurt too much and laid back down. He turned his head and saw Natasha on the other bed across from him, wrapping up cuts on her arms. He watched her apply bandages to cuts on her head and the rest of her body. He noticed the bloodstained leather on her one leg, and how it was completely limp. Trying to ignore the throbbing in his head, Clint carefully sat up and slip off the bed.

He grumbled about some stupid younger agents and how they never restock the safe houses. Besides the medical supplies Natasha had gotten from Clint's bow kit, they had two more rolls of gauze and cleaning alcohol wipes. There were pill bottles, but they were all empty and thrown carelessly in the cabinet. He grabbed what he could and sat down on the cot next to Natasha, examining the damage. He grabbed some tweezers from his kit and pried the sticky leather from her skin, intent on getting the bullets out.

Natasha protested, "Barton, you can't do that. You need to lay down. Your shoulder is bleeding again, and you can't even use that arm." She was right, his left arm hung limp and motionless on his side.

"Romanoff, give it a break. You've been shot. Twice. That's one more than me. Besides, my right hand is not completely useless, I've done it before." He paused for a moment, then under his breath mumbled, "kind of."

Natasha looked at him concerned, and repeated, "Kind of?" Clint just waved her off.

Clint opened his painkiller bottle and looked inside, shaking the last three painkillers into his hand, and gave them to Natasha.

She eyed them wearily. "Is there enough for you too?"

"Yeah," Clint lied, hiding the empty bottle in his bag. She swallowed the pills, and Clint got to work. Luckily, the bullets hadn't gone deep, so he could still see them. Using the tweezers, he dug around, trying to be as careful as possible. Natasha's face remained emotionless, but her hand behind her back was gripping a towel like it was the only thing that could keep her in reality. Slowly, he pulled the first bullet out and covered the wound with some gauze as he worked on the second one.

It was a long process, taking over an hour just to get the bullets out since Clint only had one hand to work with. Finally, the bullets were out and she started the process of stitching it up, each stitch getting harder with the increased pounding in his head and the rest of his body.

When he finished, all he wanted to do was sleep. His exhausted body had enough for one day, so he laid down in his bed, and was about to doze off when Natasha shook his good shoulder. She helped him sit up and leaned him up against the wall, peeling off his shirt so she could reach the gauze at his shoulder. The old gauze was completely bloodstained and nasty, so she balled them up and threw them to the side. She grabbed the only other needle, sterilize it, and got to work stitching up the wound in his shoulder. The gash on his forehead was wiped with alcohol wipes and held with some band-aids, while the rest of the small cuts and bruises on his face would just have to survive. She reached down into the bag and grabbed the bottle of painkillers, which seemed _way_ to light. She untwisted the cap and turned it upside in her palm, growling when nothing came out.

"Son of a gun," she whispered, angry.

She looked up at Clint who was sitting there, half asleep. He had run out of energy a long time again, and being awake was one of the battles he was losing. She grabbed his face gently, turning it from side to side. One side of his face was considerably less bruised than the other. Turning to the less bruised side, she stared at his sleeping face and slapped him, hard.

He woke up immediately, and almost fell over. "What the-?" He cried out, bringing his hand to his face.

Natasha glared at him. "I asked if there was enough. You lied. You should've used it for your arm."

Clint grinned cockily. "Assassin's lie all the time, trust me, you're no different." He shrugged, and Natasha crossed her arms. "Besides, you needed it more. I've already had way too much."

Natasha crossed her arms. "No. There's no point in me going on if you die. I can't go back to the Red Room, and why would I go to yours if you're dead? There no point in going if you're dead."

Clint smiled. "Aw, how sweet."

Natasha felt like she was going to slap him again. "Shut up, Barton," she growled, "You know what I mean."

"I do. So just go to sleep. I'll be fine and use the medicine. It'll be good for you, so you don't have to go around breaking your hand all the time." Clint laid back down in his bed and shut his eyes, while Natasha looked down at her hand as she unclenched her white fingers. She growled and limped back over to her cot no the other side of the room, and laid down in her own bed.

Right before she shut her eyes, she called out to the assassin across from her. "Goodnight, Barton." Clint was already asleep, so Natasha fell asleep to silence.


	3. Chapter 3

**A/N: Hey, here is Chapter 3! So excited! More chapters to come!**

Clint woke up suddenly, hearing yelling from the other room.

 _Oh crap. Nat._

He pulled on some pants and ran over to her side of the room, grunting in pain remembering that he was shot in the shoulder. She purposely moved her bed around the corner, to be alone. When he got there, he braced himself for Red Room guys, but no one was there. Natasha was yelling and squirming in her bad, having a nightmare. Clint sat down on the edge of her bed, quietly saying her name over and over again. Clint moved up the bed, gently placed his hand on her leg and all of a sudden, Clint found himself in a choke hold.

"What the heck is going on?!" He broke out of the choke hold, and looked at Natasha in confusion.

She shrugged, paused for a minute while Clint frantically searched her eyes for answers.

Finally she stated, "it's my natural reflex while sleeping. If I'm touched to do, well, that."

Clint rubbed his neck, then asked, "I heard yelling and I came in and saw you kicking and shaking. Was it a nightmare?"

Natasha zoned out as he said that remembering the horrors of the dream, of the actual thing. "Yes, but I'm fine now." She replied, shaking off the feeling.

Clint looked doubtful, but grunted and got off the bed and started to walk back towards his bed until Natasha called out to him. "Clint." He stopped and turned around. "Yeah?" Natasha hesitated for a moment. "Can you, uh, maybe stay here until I, uh, good to sleep?" Natasha looked at him hopefully, and Clint smiled, pulls a chair over by her bed and sits. Natasha smiled back and yawns, then crawled back under the covers and went to sleep.

The next morning Natasha woke up to see Clint in the chair beside her bed, asleep. "Barton, Barton, Barton." Natasha whispered, smiling to herself. Grunting, she sat up in her bed, and gently shook Barton awake. "Huh?" Barton grumbled. "Come on sleeping beauty. Time to get out of here." They cleaned up their make-shift hideout, packed their bags, and left the bloody hideout heading for the set coordinates. Drudging around for a half-an-hour, Natasha finally asked Clint, who was looking over a GPS that looked broken, "Do you know where we are going?" He threw the broken GPS behind him and answered, "I did. But now I think we are going in the general direction." Natasha sighed, and trudged forward some more.

3 hours later, both of the assassins tired and hungry, sat down to rest for a minute. "How much longer do you think we have?" Natasha asked as she re-tied the bandage across Clints shoulder. He shrugged with one shoulder. "I don't know. Fury said he would pick us up somewhere near here. I think we should just bunker down and call him, and see where our pick up arrives." He answered. They agreed and found a little cave with a opening where they could see out of. After they were settled down and watching out of the mouth of the cave, Natasha started the conversation. "Barton?" she asked. Clint didn't stop playing with his arrow but said, "Yes?" Natasha took a deep breath and started talking. "What are you going to do when they actually get here? I mean, you were supposed to kill me right?" Clint dropped his arrow at the question, then gathered himself up again, then said a soft yes.

"Then what are we going to do?" Natasha asked again.

Clint sighed, and slowly said, "For once, I don't know. Were probably just going to have to wing it. When we come in, stay behind me. The other agents will recognize you and probably draw their guns, so just stay behind me, and we will go to Fury's office." Then he looked down at Natasha's bloody thigh and his limp shoulder, and added, "then my room, to fix us up."

Natasha looked at him puzzled, and asked, "Do you not like the infirmary?" He replied, "If you ever go in there, you wouldn't either." Seeing her concerned face, he quickly replied, "Oh. It's not bad and they don't do, like, experiments on you. It's just weird and I already don't like hospitals." At this Natasha relaxed a little bit, and settled in to wait for their ride.

Both assassins had dozed off for a bit, but as soon as they heard a jet come in, they knew it was their ride. After packing up what stuff they had, Clint went to the mouth of the cave, and looked out, expecting to see a little jet where they would go home, but he was surprised. They brought the whole helicarrier!

 _Good._ Clint thought. _That mean we don't have to wait to get back to base to talk to Fury._

Barton and Romanoff had climbed out of the cave, and was standing on the group as the helicarrier landed. As the other agents stepped out, they knew something was wrong when they saw a female standing behind Agent Barton. Especially a red-haired female.

Immediately, one of the agents ran inside, while the remaining held their ground and drew their guns. Clint and Natasha stopped where they are, did not draw their weapons, but didn't put their hands up either.

It was an odd sight to see. Clint had dried blood on the side of his head, his left shoulder bandaged and motionless, and various cuts and bruises everywhere else. Natasha was limping, now leaning heavily on Clint, with a bandage around her thigh, and more cuts and bruises else where.

Then, Nick Fury stepped out of the helicarrier. He walked up to Barton, gun drawn, and said, "Barton, WHAT THE HECK HAPPENED? I send you on one miss-" Fury suddenly stopped, eyes locked with Natasha's. "Barton.." Fury started again.

Barton shook his head. "First, sir, can we get some medical help? Then I will answer your questions." Fury hesitated, but agreed. 20 minutes later, Barton and Romanoff shared a hospital room, with IVs and nurses attending all the injuries, from severe to minor. A couple hours later, still not cleared from the infirmary, Barton and Romanoff snuck out of their room, Natasha still limping a little, using Clint to walk, and Clint's arm now being able to move, but not a lot.

They reached Fury's office and Clint turned to Natasha and asked, "Are you ready?" She slipped her arm off of his shoulder and stood up as straight as she could, and nodded. Clint knocked on the door, and a muffled "come in" came through the door. Clint opened the door and Natasha came in, and sat immediately down in the two chair in front of Fury's desk. Clint nodded his head at Fury and said "sir", and did the same actions to the man standing next to Fury. Clint could sense of unease with Natasha in here, as Fury had put his gun straight in front of him, incase he had to grab it at a moment's notice.

Clint turned to Natasha and said, "Nat? This is Director Fury," he pointed to Fury, "And this," he pointed to the man standing next to Fury, "Is Agent Phil Coulson."

She nodded as Coulson and Fury looked at each other.

Coulson took a deep breath and said, "Barton, What happened?"

Clint sighed, and started to tell the whole story, from chasing her on the roof of the cafe, to their talk in the cave. He told them about how he talked to her about joining SHIELD, how she helped when the Red Room attacked, and how she had saved him.

"That still doesn't make up for taking the most deadly assassin here! She could've killed you? What if after this, she kills you then? What if all of this is an act to come in here and kill SHIELD?" Fury shouted, then inched his hand closer to his gun.

"With all due respect, sir, she won't kill me. She had saved my butt multiple times. When we were in the hotel, the Red Room came in and shot me in the shoulder. She could've left me there, bleeding to die. Or she had her own gun, she could've shot me and left. But she didn't." Clint answered calmly, stating facts evenly.

Fury and Coulson looked at each other then Fury stood up and said, "Excuse us for a minute." They exited to room, trying to talk quietly, but ended up shouting multiple times. Natasha looked worried, messing with the bandages on her thigh. Finally, Fury and Coulson came back into Fury's office. Clint and Natasha stood up to be at level with them and Fury looked at Clint and said, "Sorry, she can't stay. There's too much of a risk, and we don't know if we could trust her."

Clint looked at him with his mouth hanging open, then quickly shut it and said, "Sir, can we please talk for a minute? Alone?" he looked at Natasha and she went outside, and Coulson walked out with her. Coulson sat down, and Natasha sat across from him, occasionally reaching for a spot her guns were for reassurance, but SHIELD had took her weapons.

Coulson noticed and said, "He really doesn't like you, but I guess you know that. Personally, I thought you would be ok, but the Director is stubborn. Barton can probably get through to him though. I think you'll have a chance." Natasha looked up and said thanks, but mostly remaining silent while muffled shouts were coming from the office. An hour later, Clint and Fury came back out, both looking exhausted from verbally fighting for the past hour. "Nat, Fury said you'd be ok, as long as you pass a polygraph, and have to be under careful watch from Coulson." Natasha lit up, "So I can actually do things?" She said. Clint shook his head, "No, not yet. You're stuck doing training, and with me. I'm in trouble, so we are both not doing a missions til your cleared and Fury's not mad at me anymore."

Coulson told them to go back to the infirmary, and because he knew Clint's hate for doctors and hospitals, he walked them down. When they got there, Clint waved away Coulson, then as he left, Clint snuck behind a nurse, and went into a medical closet with Natasha trailing right behind him.

"What are we doing?" Natasha whispered.

Clint was moving items around in a medical cabinet and without turning around said, "I don't want to go with the nurses and doctors, so we are taking some supplies and going back to my room."

Natasha looked at him oddly and replied, "Isn't that stealing? And you're already in trouble with Fury."

Clint turned around with a smirk on his face, "Don't tell me that the best assassin in the world, with over 3 dozen kills, have NEVER done ANYTHING wrong." Natasha smiled, punched him in his unhurt arm, and started grabbing medicine.

 **A/N: Thanks guys for reading this! I wonder what happens next? Will Natasha be made part of the team? Sorry for spelling errors, its been late when I post these. Please review!**


	4. Chapter 4

**A/N: Here ya go, Chapter 4! Please review!**

At about 5 am, three sharp knocks came to Clint's SHIELD hosted room. Clint didn't bother to get up, he just shifted in his bed and groaned out a soft "What?"

"Barton, I let you sleep in, but you've got to get your butt moving! Were going to the gym, to work on, stuff. Bring the Black Widow too." Coulson called through the locked door. Clint mumbled a small "ok" and a couple minutes later, he dragged himself out of bed. He went into his living room area to find the hide-a-bed that Natasha was supposed to be sleeping, but found it was all folded up and neat. He looked around for a minute, then saw Natasha come out of his bathroom in her clean leather suit with a towel wrapped around her head.

"Hey sleeping beauty." She said, as she took the took the towel off her head and started to dry her hair.

"Hey", he replied, "how long have you been up? It's just now 5."

"Not to long ago. I just wanted to take a shower." She paused. "By the way, I used your shower."

Clint snorted, "I noticed. I'm going to take a quick shower, then Coulson needs us in the gym, to do, as he stated, 'stuff'".

He started for the bathroom, then stopped and turned around saying, "I almost forgot. Coulson came by last night and dropped off a uniform for you. You probably don't want to make some level 1 newbies crap in their pants if they see you in your outfit."

Natasha smirked and grabbed the uniform and put it on, fitting surprisingly well. 20 minutes later, Clint and Natasha meet Agent Coulson in the seemingly empty gym, cleaned and dressed.

"You're late." Coulson told Clint.

"Sorry, sir. What are we doing?" Clint responded.

"Right, now, Barton, we are going to see what she," at this Coulson made a subtle nod to Natasha, "can do, before her lie detector test."

They both shrugged. "First," Coulson started,

"Barton, you are going to be in the middle of the gym, and when the timer starts, agents will jump out at you and attack you. The point is to get all the attackers down as fast as you can. You've done this before, Barton." "Yes, sir."

Barton jogged out to the middle of the room, stretching and waiting for the timer to go. Coulson and Natasha went to the side of the gym, and Natasha could tell that he was nervous standing so close to her.

"Sir?" she started, and Coulson jumped at her sudden question. "Y-yes?" he stammered. "What was the fastest time for this? And who did it?" Coulson looked down at his folder of papers. "Well, Barton over there is our best agent, and he had the best time of about, four and a half minutes." He stated, and pulled out his phone to start the timer.

Natasha gave the slightest notion of being impressed, but then turned immediately to watch Clint as the buzzer sounded. Surprisingly, Natasha was impressed. When multiple agents would swarm in, he would take on all of them at once, punched this one, while side-kicking that one. 3 minutes later, Clint stood in the middle of the gym, panting from the fight, with agents moaning on the floor all around him. He wasn't seriously injured, but he had a couple bruises here and there, a nasty bruise on his temple, and was limping a little on his left leg.

He walked over to where Romanoff and Coulson were standing and said, "Beat that Romanoff, new record." Natasha just smiled and said, "Gladly, Barton." A few minutes later, Natasha brushed off her shoulders and cracked her knuckles, then smiled at Clint with all the agents surrounding her. Coulson looked down at his timer then back up to Natasha in astonishment.

"That was 2 minutes and 30 seconds."

He turned to Clint, "That was faster than you!" Clint looked up at Natasha and scowled, then playfully punched her in the arm, a little harder than expected. He smirked when Natasha put on a expression of mock surprise and ran at him. The pair sparred for a while, until Fury's booming voice called for them to go to his office. As they entered the office, a frightening chair with wires and restraints was off in a little glass room.

Natasha looked over and asked, "Is that the lie detector?" Fury smiled and walked over to the chair and Coulson sat down at the control panel. "Yes it is." Fury replied, "not only is it the lie detector, this is THE lie detector. This will measure galvanic skin response, oxygen consumption, micro-expressions, biofeedback brain waves, pupil dilation, voice biometrics, plus 90 other variables. If you lie, this will tell."

 _Good._ Natasha thought, _because I don't intend on lying._ A few minutes later, Natasha was hooked up to the chair, with Coulson and Barton sitting at the control desk.

"Coulson will be giving you the questions and looking at the variables. I will not be here, but I will look at your results and see if you can stay." Fury said, then left the room. "Ok." Coulson said, as the machine turned on, "We are going to start with basic questions, then move on. Don't lie, ok?" Natasha nodded, and Coulson started the questioning.

"What is your full name?"

"Natalia Alianovna Romanova, Chyornaya Vdova, Nadine Roman, Natasha Romanoff, Natalia Shostakova, I've gots lots of 'em"

Clint smirked at her sarcastic tone, and Coulson rolled his eyes.

"What is the name you want to be called?"

Natasha took a deep breath and said, "Natasha Romanoff."

"Ok. Eye color?"

"Green."

"Have you been married before?"

"No."

"Who is your immediate family?"

"Pass."

"What's the difference between an egg and a rock?"

"Food. A weapon."

"You are alone, stranded on a island. On the shore is a box. What is in the box?"

"My guns."

"Now, why are you here?"

"To escape my past."

"Final question, do you have any ties to your former life that will bring harm? And will you be loyal to SHIELD?"

"No and yes."

"Thank you Miss Romanoff, you are done. Now you and Clint can go back to the gym and spar, or go back to his room while Fury decides the results." Coulson said, gathering his papers and leaving the room.

Clint helped Natasha pull off all the wires and out of the chair, and went back to the gym to spar some more, awaiting the results.

"Hey. How. Did. You. Think. I. Did?" Natasha forced out between breath while she sparred with Clint.

He was currently on top of Natasha, but she used her leg and hooked it over his, and flipped him so their positions switched. She grabbed his arm and pinned it behind him, in a position that would break a normal man's arm. Clint was a normal man, but he was stronger and more pain resistant than others, so he held out for about a minute in Natashas death grip before he tapped out. Clint walked over to where the water fountain was and after a good minute of sucking up water, he answered.

"Well. From what I saw on your chart, you didn't really lie, so I think you would make it in."

Natasha smiled and Clint grins back, pausing for a second, then sprinting at Natasha. It was supposed to be a surprise, but Natasha saw it coming, and dropping down to the ground early, as Clint jumped over her. On the ground, when Clint flew over her, Natasha kicked out her leg and caught Clint squarely in the midsection, making him fly farther, then hit the ground moaning. Natasha jumped up, brushed herself off, then walked proudly to Clint, standing over him.

"How'd you like that? I thought you were awesome and could see everything coming?" Natasha smirked, and looked up. Clint saw his moment, and knocked Natasha off balance, then flipping her over his shoulder.

"I do see things." Clint responded, as Natasha lay on the ground, gasping for breath. Clint smiled and reached down to give her a hand up. They stood up and walked over to the bench to get some water after there workout. "Clint, uh, I wan-" Natasha started to talk to Clint but was cut off by Coulson walking through the gym door. Both of the assassins turned and looked at Coulson when he said, "Follow me."

Ten minutes, sweaty Barton and Romanoff sat down in Fury's big office, awaiting Natasha's results. "Well." Nick Fury said, walking in, "Congratulations Ms. Romanoff. You're in." Natasha let out a small grin and thanked Fury, and her and Barton walked out of the office. When Natasha looked over at Clint, he still had the stupid smile of his glued on his face.

"How long are you going to keep smiling like that Barton?" Natasha asked, keeping her face straight.

"Until you finally wanna celebrate making SHIELD." Barton smiled even broader and grabbed her arm. "Come on, we're going to the roof."

Natasha looked confused, but let herself be pulled down the hallway, quietly muttering, "why do we need to go to the roof."

"Here we are!" Clint shouted, pushing open the doors to a small table in the middle of the roof, with a sad looking cake and a couple cups. He walked forward, grabbed a lighter out of his pocket, lit a couple candles and turned around (with the lighter still going) and shouted, "good job making SHIELD!" Natasha was about to answer, when the wind blew the flame from the lighter and hit the sleeve of Clint's t-shirt. He noticed, and quickly shut the lighter and jumped to the ground, to get out the flames. Natasha stifled her laughter as Clint stood back up, with half his sleeve burned.

Clint noticed her staring and said, "What? You've never burned your clothes while throwing a surprise party for an ex-assassin?"

For the first time, Natasha gave a genuine laugh, and asked, "Is this how you treat every new-comer to SHIELD?"

"No," Clint said, mocking offense, "only the ones who save my butt. Come on. I got cake that's not half bad, a couple beers because I know every Russian likes beer, and it's the roof! The best place in the whole base!"

"Isn't this where all the jets come in and land? Are we going to get decapitated because of a plane coming in?" Natasha asked, eyes looking wide in the night sky.

"No. This area is near the stairs and whatever so some regulation that I never read said that no plane can come near here. This is technically not even the "roof" of the helicarrier. The actual roof would be where the jets come and go. If you fell off there, you would be gone. Here, you'll just fall and hit the actual roof," Barton looked down, "only about a 20 ft drop."

"Comforting." Natasha answered, with sarcasm dripping from her voice. "Well," she said again, "let's have cake."


	5. Chapter 5

**A/N: Hi guys! So here is Chapter 5, I honestly don't know how many chapters there will be, so I'm warning you. Now, some of this is one of my favorite chapters, but this Chapter is basically the reason why this has a high rating. So warning...**

An hour later, Natasha was watching a very drunk Clint trying to the chicken dance, while she tried very hard not to laugh. She looked at the sky, and guessed it was about 2 in the morning. It may not have been a great party, but it was pretty fun. And Barton was right. The cake wasn't that bad

"Okay, Barton, let's go." Natasha said, piling up the plates and cups off the table.

"Noooooooooooo way Jose. I want to party alllll night." Clint said, standing as straight as he could, but ending up still falling over. Natasha sighed and went over to Clint, who refused to move. So instead, She picked him up in a fireman's carry, and started to their room.

Halfway to their room, Coulson walked by, and stared at Clint hanging over Natasha. He looked at Natasha in horror and said, "Oh my god, you killed him!"

Natasha shook her head. "No, sir. He extremly drunk. I'm taking him back to our room." Clint then woke up to see Coulson staring, and from his position on Natasha, he saluted him and said, "Goooooood night, sir." Then fell back unconscious once again.

Coulson shook his head, then said, "Ms. Romanoff, I am also moving you and Clint to a new room, that is adjoining, so you can have some privacy, but still together because Fury doesn't quite trust you yet." Natasha shrugged and said, "Yes, sir. But I need to get Barton up first. We will move out tomorrow." Coulson nodded and just walked away.

"Come on stupid, let's go back up before you start puking." Natasha said to Clint, as he was visibly turning green. 10 minutes later, Romanoff and Barton were safely in the bathroom with Clint puking his guts out. Natasha shifted uncomfortably on the edge of the bathtub, across from the toilet, wondering what she should do. Clint had finally started to regain his senses again, only to be as sick as ever.

After a long one, Clint looked up at Natasha and said between breaths, "Nat. It's 3 in the morning. Go to bed. I'll be fine. Go to sleep." After that, he did another nice long puke.

Natasha turned away from the smell, hesitated for a moment and said, "No, Barton. It's ok. I'm going to stay here." Clint gave a small smiled and closed his eyes, leaning back against the wall, but near the toilet. A little while later, Natasha moved off her spot on the tub and sat on the ground next to Clint, who had not puked and fallen asleep.

The next morning, Clint woke up to feeling like he had just been hit by seven buses. He moaned and turned over, to only see that his clock read 8:30 in the morning. He also realized he was in a bed, but in a different room. He heard a small knock, then saw Natasha peek through the door.

"Hey sleeping beauty."

Clint moaned, turned over, and asked, "Where are we? This isn't my bed, and I don't remember going to any bed."

Natasha sat down on the edge of his bed. "We switched rooms. While you were all loopy last night, Coulson came by and said he got us new, connected rooms, so we both get a bed. After you finished puking and fell asleep, I moved you and your stuff to here."

Clint listened for a moment and then started to get up. "Well," he started, "that was horrible, so I'm going to take a shower and then go grab some things you missed from my old room." Natasha just looked at him

"No, I got everything. Even in your hiding places. By the way, you might need some new hiding spots, your old ones aren't very good." Clint stared as Natasha left the room. He shook his head to clear it, only causing a small headache become bigger. He slowly moved out of bed to get cleaned up and take on whatever the day planned.

"No. No way. I am NOT ready for this." Clint was pretty much ready for anything, but not this. He couldn't. More importantly, he wouldn't.

"Barton come on. Everyone has to do the "fear test", as younger agents call it, and you know it. You've just avoided it this whole time. And with Ms. Romanoff being new, you should show her how it's done." Coulson answered with a sigh. He knew Barton didn't want to do this, but it was required, and Coulson had let him off easy other times, but agents need it for entering SHIELD, and after traumatic missions. Coulson wouldn't call Barton's mission traumatic, but he needed to do it. Barton needed the test done, and Coulson would use physical force if needed.

Coulson stood by the machine, looking similar to the lie detector chair, waiting for Barton to come and sit, patience wearing thin.

"Fine." Barton said. "I'll do it. But only this once, Coulson." Clint walked over, and sat down, letting himself get strapped down in the chair. Natasha sat across the room in one of the other chair, wondering why Barton was so nervous. It couldn't be _that_ bad could it?

After everything was secure, Coulson stepped away from the chair and back into the table and chair where Natasha sat. Coulson flipped some switches, and Natasha looked over at Clint, who was sweating immensely.

Natasha looked over at Coulson, "Sir, is this really that bad?" She was worried because she had never seen Barton (for while she'd known him after he was sent to kill her) look so nervous, and, dare she say it, scared.

Coulson didn't look at Natasha when he answered. "It's different for different people. Barton really doesn't like it, because he doesn't have a normal fear, like spiders or whatever." Natasha nodded slowly, then turned silent as Coulson started the machine.

Clint, as he hated to admit it, was very, very scared. He hated doing this, but he didn't have a choice. He prepared himself as he sunk into the swirling blackness.

" _I got one!" Young Clint said, proudly holding holding up a bullfrog he just caught from the river. "Good job squirt." said his older brother Barney. "Lets start going home, it's close to dinner and we still have to mow the lawn." They put the frog in a container with air holes in it, and started to sprint back to their small house in Iowa. But they were too late. Their father was already home, and already roaring drunk. When they entered the house, there father was lying on the couch with a beer in his hand, and their mother, Edith, already sporting a black eye. Barney had explained to Clint that when their father got drunk, he started hitting anyone near him. Which was often, because Harold Barton was an alcoholic who drank often. After spewing insults and threats at Clint and Barney for not getting to mowing to lawn, Harold passed out on the couch. Then at dinner time, Harold sat at the head of the table, ranting on how bad work was, then got mad at Edith because the mashed potatoes didn't taste right. The more he yelled, the more anger grew in Clint. Eventually he snapped. Clint started yelling at Harold right back, which earned Clint a black eye, bloody nose, and a unexpected 20 minute nap._

Blackness

" _Barney, I don't think you should-" Clint started, but Barney cut him off. "It's ok Clint, it will be ok." "But what if something happens to you? Then I'm going to be all alone!" Clint argued back, on the verge of tears. Barney was going with the Swordsman, also known as Jacques, and his crew, telling Clint they were doing "nothing." But Clint knew. He saw Barney take wallets out of people's pockets, and he overheard the Swordsman talking about the bank where the heist would take place. When the group came back with stuffed canvas bags, Clint played his innocence act and pretended to be the good little boy who did nothing._

Blackness

 _Clint, who was now a young adult, had gotten way past the anger point and was now raging at the Swordsman. "Jacques! You can't do that! The circus is you life! It's your home! And what about me? You used to treat me like a son, a father I never had! You keep embezzling money from the circus, we won't have any home anymore!" Jacques had not spoken a word, or move from his spot on the wall, just letting Clint rant at him. Then finally he spoke in a low, heavily accented voice. "You want to know why I took the money? Because the circus was ripping me off. And soon it will do it to you too, if you stay. That's why I'm taking the money and going. Nothing is going to stop me." Jacques started to make his way towards the door when Clint stepped in front of it, his bow drawn with an arrow aimed at Jacques's heart. "No." Clint said. "This may not be your home any more, but it is mine, and I'm not going to let you take money away from it." Jacques pulled out his sword and stepping into a fighting position. "Fine. Stop me. If you can."_

Blackness

" _Why didn't you stop him?" Barney sat across the hospital bed where Clint lay, bloodied and bruised, both legs wrapped up into casts. "He broke both of my legs Barney! It's not like I could just get up and walked over to him, much less fight him again. "Then why didn't you call the police?" Barney asked pushing for more. Clint was quiet for a second, "because it's my home. If the police came, they would've found out what we were doing. After you left, it was the only place that I knew." Barney smiled at his baby brother. "Well," he started, "you're fine now. I'm here now, and I won't leave." When Clint woke back up, Barney was gone, and Clint had never seen barney again._

Blackness

Clint woke up again and realized the nightmare was over. It was finally over.

Natasha stared with her mouth open at Clint. He was hanging limply on the chair, completely exhausted, the straps on his arms and legs the only thing keeping him on the chair. His head was hanging down, sweated dripped from his matted hair, and the rest of the sweat coating his body. He was shaking violently, and he didn't stop after they got him out of the chair. Even Coulson looked a little worried. Coulson had seen many agents not turn out well after the test, but none as worse as this. Coulson decided to call off Natasha's turn for the test, and told her he would do it tomorrow, after Barton was better.

After Natasha put the shaking and exhausted Clint to bed, she went into her room, sat on her bed, and thought about what she saw on Clint's fears. Coulson was right about him not being afraid of like spiders or whatever, but she was not expecting this. He never had a family, also like her. Everyone he had ended up leaving or hurting him. He had a very bad case of being alone. She bet though, all of the loneliness he felt, he turned into anger against people like his father. She tried to get Clint off her mind as she went to bed, but unsuccessfully went to sleep, still thinking about Clint.

Clint had no sleep that night. He remembered waking up from the machine, the most terrifying thing he had ever done, shaking and dripping sweat. He couldn't move, and he kept falling in and out of consciousness. He remembered Natasha helping him out of the chair, looking worried, Coulson turning off the machine, also worried. She helped him into his bed, and Clint passed out

Nightmare after nightmare came that night, all of the worst ones he'd ever had.

The next morning, Clint was better, but still in a little bit of shock of the day before. But now, Natasha was starting to get worried. Clint could hold up on some pretty tough things, as he could see, and Natasha could hold on to more stuff than him. But what the test did to him looked unnatural.

As soon as the duo entered the testing room again for Natasha's turn, Clint instantly went silent. It was unnatural. Coulson walked with Natasha to the chair, strapped her in, went back, and turned on the machine. But he noticed Clint was gone. He was standing outside, motionless, reflecting on the awful things the chair had shown them, Clint's darkest secrets.

Natasha had fared better than Clint on the test, but not by much. Her fear was her past as well, and while it was the same severity as Clint's, it was different. When Natasha walked out, she found Clint still sitting on the chair, staring at the wall.

"Clint." She said, and he turned towards her. "Let's go. I need to go, somewhere, anywhere." The two walked in silence, until they reached the stairway again, leading up to the roof. Once they reached the floor, Clint immediately walked over to the edge, and roughly sat down, legs dangling over the edge. Natasha, after looking into the now darkened sky, sat down with him a little bit later

"Tell me what yours was about. You saw mine, so I want to know about yours." Clint finally said. She had seen his horrors, so he wanted to know hers. Natasha blew out air next to him. After a couple of minutes, she started to tell what she had seen.

 _The soft click of lock a key awoke young Natasha, who, along with 28 other girls, were handcuffed to the bed while undergoing the Black Widow project. They were handcuffed there to prevent escape. After a small breakfast, Natasha flew through hand-to-hand combat, weapons training, tactical skills, combat training, acrobatics, the head of her class, as always. Then came ballet, because of course, they were ballerinas, training in the Bolshoi Theatre. The ballet was the hardest part, doing routines over and over again. Madame B. said that doing them over would make them unbreakable. Then, once a week, which also happened to be that day, they had a sparing match. This was the first time the girls would do it themselves. They had seen older students do it before, so they knew how it worked. It was a fight to the death. You lose, you die. At the end of the program, the Black Widow would be the one who was the last remaining recruit._

 _Three shots went off at a target. Natasha, now a young adult, had it her target in the head, the chest, and the torso. Except it wasn't a paper target. Another "test", Madame B. said, instead of a paper target, to use people. Mostly recruits who failed the program, but didn't die. Natasha didn't enjoy it, but she had to do anything to survive._

 _It was a standoff. Natasha, and the other last girl remaining, Lucya. Who, unfortunately, was Natasha's friend. But Natasha had to win, to survive. It was an even battle, both girls were top performers. They had been fighting for half an hour, but neither girl showed signs of tiring, because in the program, each girl had been injected with more hormones, making them stronger, faster, tire less. But finally, unfortunately, Lucya made one tiny slip up, causing Natasha to get her arms around Lucya's neck, and snapping it._

" _The ceremony is necessary, for you to take you place in the world." Madame B. said, staring into Natasha's eyes after winning. Guards were coming, to prep her for the ceremony, and Natasha didn't want to go. "We have no place in the world." Natasha replied back, using the phrase the Red Room taught her. "Exactly." Madame B. answered, with a small smile on her face, as the guards put Natasha on the gurney and wheeled her away._

"Woah." Clint breathed. He thought his was bad, but not this bad. _How can she be so calm after reliving that? My wasn't as bad and I was still a nervous wreck,_ Clint thought. Natasha just gave a small smile, and continued to stare out into the starry sky. "Ok, I have a billion questions, but I'm going to ask one for now. What's with the ballet thing? They said you were ballerinas?" Natasha sighed.

"Yes. While doing all the training and tests, they brainwashed us. Tricked us into believing that we were ballerinas, and the training was part of what it takes to be one." She said, poison dripping through her words. She really needed to punch something. "Can we go to the gym? I really need to spar, or punch something, or doing something."

Clint smiled and said, "We don't need to go to the gym, we can do it here on the roof. It's safe. Enough. Just don't fall off."

Long hours of sparring aside, Clint did not listen to his own advice, and fell off the roof 4 times, but hung on to the side long enough to climb up himself, or have Natasha help him up. But they went back to their room earlier than before, because Coulson came up and told them to get ready for their first mission.

 **A/N: Told ya. A little bad. Poor guys, having a hard time. But Clint sure is funny drunk. Watch out, chapter 6 is taking a little bit more time. Please review!**


	6. Chapter 6

**A/N: Hey guys! I'm really sorry I haven't posted in a long time, but here it is! Enjoy!**

"You are STRIKE Team: Delta. Currently, it is only the two of you," Coulson indicated to Clint and Natasha, "but when you go on mission, Delta 2 is a backup, just in case something goes wrong. And on big mission, for whenever you get one, some of Delta 2 will come with you." Both assassins were excited because they had not done anything for the past few months, and they desperately needed something to do beside face old fears and fall off roofs.

They sat in the big briefing/conference room, being briefed by Coulson, and later Fury, because he was currently in a meeting.

"This is purely a surveillance mission, so you should NOT be engaging the targets unless ABSOLUTELY necessary. You are going to watch a warehouse where suspected HYDRA agents are meeting. You just need to gather intel, listen in, and if open, maybe see if you can reach a computer and hack into it. If you do reach a computer, use this flash drive," Coulson handed them a small red flash drive, "to gather intel. It already know what to grab and it can sort out stuff it doesn't need, so you just need to plug it in. Easy enough?"

"Sure." Clint answered for both of them, but it was hard to hide the excitement in his voice.

"Repeat it back to me, so I know you won't mess up this really, easy, only scouting mission." Coulson said, clearly doubting the assassins skills to follow directions.

"We are STRIKE Team Delta." Clint said

"This is a surveillance mission of a warehouse that is a suspected HYDRA base." Natasha added.

"We do not engage the HYDRA agents."

"We are just gathering intel, and if we find a computer, we use the flash drive to get the information."

"Then we get out of there." Clint finished

"Good. Then wheels up in 30, so get whatever you need." Coulson said, then got up and left the room.

Natasha looked confused at the statement, "Oh, that's a saying Coulson likes to say. It mean we're leaving in 30 minutes. We need to go get my stuff, and we can get you some more things if you want." Clint explained. "Come on, I'll show you where my secret things are." Clint grabbed Natasha's hand and pulled down the hallway.

Once in his room again, he went over to the wall where his bed stood, knocked 3 times, and a electronic passcode popped up on the wall. Clint was about to put in the code when he noticed Natasha staring at him. "Uh, hello? Super secret code here, can you like, turn around or something?" Natasha shrugged and turned around while Clint put in the code.

"Here we go." Clint turned to Natasha, "this is basically everything for Hawkeye." Natasha snorted. Clint turned around to face her and she said, "What? I still think it's funny." But when she looked in the hidden closet, it was pretty cool. There was an assortment of bows, from recurves to traditional style to compound to crossbows. There was about a billion arrows, all with specially made broadheads. Clint said they were made for him by Stark, and she would meet him later. The rest of it was unorganized random weapons and guns for when he couldn't bring his bow.

"Woah." She breathed. It was amazing, more than she had ever seen, and she was not impressed by a lot of things.

"Yeah, I know, pretty cool." Clint said back, smiling proudly at his "weapons closet" as he liked to call it. "Ok," he said, back to business, "give me a minute to grab my stuff, then we can go get what you have, and I may have "borrowed" some new toys from Fury for you." Clint said, putting air quotes at "borrowed".

10 minutes later, the two new agents of STRIKE Team Delta were all decked out and ready to leave for their first mission.

On the quinjet, Coulson briefed them again, saying it was only a surveillance mission and nothing else. They both just nodded, but not really paying attention to his words.

"Here are comms, you can communicate with us at anytime, and us to you. If you see something suspicious, report it to us, Fury and I will be on comms at all times, along with some other agents." Coulson explained, handing Clint and Natasha small little electronic devices, which Natasha assumed were comms. She placed the comm in her ear just as Clint was complaining to Coulson.

"But sir," he whined, "what about my comm? I like it much better."

Coulson rolled his eyes. "Barton you're comm exploded two missions ago. So here's _your_ new one."

Clint smiled at the fact Coulson was annoyed at him. Then he went back into focusing on the mission. In less than 3 minutes, Natasha and himself, in diving gear, would jump out of the jet and land close to the building, where they would start their first mission.

Natasha didn't really know why, but she loved jumping off things, especially planes. Maybe it was the wind blowing her skin off her face, the icy-cold burning her skin, she just loved it. And she felt know different when she jumped out with Clint. Except it was different. She was no a mission with SHIELD, no less, on a mission with a partner.

Clint didn't really feel the same way. He loved dropping out of airplanes for missions, but it wasn't like he would do it for fun. It wasn't the heights that bothered him, it was drop that he didn't like. But, for SHIELD, you have to do a lot of things you don't like.

Without a doubt, Natasha landed on the rocky ground with barely a sound, while Clint stumbled and tripped over some rocks, landing with a _thud_ on the ground. Natasha snorted while Clint glared, grumbling as he grabbed his parachute.

"Come on, Nat," Clint said already walking away, "the hideouts this way." Natasha reluctantly followed, excited to do something, even just surveillance.

When the duo reached the hideout, they were not impressed. It was run down, rats filled every corner, flies everywhere else. The make-shift walls were falling apart, and the ceiling looking dangerously close to collapsing.

"Wow," Natasha said, carefully stepping in there, "I've seen torture chambers nicer than this." Clint silently nodded.

"Let's go find a place that's better, and probably closer. I don't really care what Fury says, we can't see anything from the hideout anyhow." Clint said, making his way out of the hideout, his sharp eyes piercing through the thick forest looking for a new spot. "There are a couple of good trees that would be pretty good." Him and Natasha started to jog down the brush.

Once they found a good tree, they decided that Clint would go up in the tree, and Natasha would stay on the ground, with most of the supplies.

Half an hour later, Clint was bored.

"Tasha, I'm bored." Clint whined, legs swinging on the tree making leaves fall down and branches brush together.

"Stop that." She hissed. "You're making noise and I don't want to be trapped in a HYDRA base with not a lot of weapons because you got bored and fell off a tree."

Clint pretended to be shocked. "I will not fall off. Here, I'll prove it."

"No, Clint, don-" but before she could finish, Clint leaped back, with surprising grace, caught the branch, swung around, and landed back in the same spot he was originally, finishing with a dramatic bow. Natasha looked at him in surprise, and he just stared back.

"What?" Clint said. "I was in the circus. Don't expect me _not_ to know these things." But then he fell silent for the first time. While staring at the warehouse, he saw some movement out from the corner of his eye. He turned on his comm and started to whisper to Natasha.

"Nat, suspected movement, 3 o'clock, and-" He turned and looked around a full 360 degrees, " 9 o'clock." He slowly got his bow off his back and pulled an arrow out of his quiver and strung it. "Nat." He hissed.

Gunshots hit the tree around Clint, " contact, Nat, coNTACT!" Clint jumped off the tree, shooting his arrow while watching Natasha fight off two bad guys who came behind her. Clint turned back to the three guys who came up to him. _Nat will be fine. I'm guessing she's handled worse._

10 minutes later, all the bad guys lay tied up to a tree, unconscious.

"Ok. Well, we already broke Fury's rules, so we can just say they attacked us first." Natasha nodded at Clint. "Let's go check out that warehouse." The duo started jogging down the way to the HYDRA warehouse.

"Ok." Natasha whispered to Clint under one of the warehouse windows. "I hear at least six voices inside, probably two guards at each entrance, maybe more inside the building."

Clint shrugged. "Ok, we can take them. It's just a warehouse no big 'head of HYDRA' is just waiting inside. I'm going to take a look." Clint slowly turned around and peeked into the warehouse.

Clint swore under his breath.

"It's Marcus Scarlotti." Clint said as he turned back to Natasha with terror in his eyes.

 **A/N: Awwwwww Crap. What happens next? Dun Dun Duhhhhhh!**

 **I don't know when I will post the next chapter, so sorry if it's really late.**


	7. Chapter 7

**A/N: Hi guys! Chapter 7 is here! So excited! Sorry this chapter took awhile, things have gotten busy again!**

 **Thank you for everyone who has read my story, but I have no reviews :( (cry cry cry)**

 **Please review! anything will help!**

"Crap, crap, crap, crap, crap. No, no, nope, Nat, I'm outta here. I am not going to deal with that dip-wad." Clint said rambling on with himself. "I don't care. I'll tell Fury I failed the mission, but I don't want to do this."

Natasha ignored him, running through possibilities in her head. "Let's look again." Clint stopped talking and stared at her, but didn't argue when she slowly started to turn around. Clint just shrugged and started to join her.

"Instead of looking here, let's find a better place, where we can maybe hear better." Natasha whispered. She started moving to her left, but Clint stayed in his spot for a moment, looking through the window, staring at Scarlotti. He was about to leave when he saw Scarlotti stop talking. He smiled, turned his head, and stared back at Clint through the window.

Clint freaked out. He ran from the window, catching up with Natasha. "Nat, Nat, Nat!" Clint half-whispered, half-shouted. "Scarlotti looked right at me!" Natasha swore under her breath. In her head she went through all the things she knew about Marcus Scarlotti. He was in charge of the weapons part of HYDRA, he was a professional assassin, worked as a mercenary when he needed money, had over 68 listed kills of important people. He never missed a kill. Natasha had a bad feeling Clint was the next one on his list.

Natasha looked over at Clint, and he knew that Scarlotti would come after him next, so for once, he sat silent.

"Ok." He said, standing up. "I'm not just going to sit there and wait for fate. If I'm going to die, I at least want to take some people out with me." Natasha agreed silently, worrying of the fate of her new friend.

What would she do without him? At SHIELD? He got her into SHIELD with persuasion from Fury, and without him, Natasha might actually go crazy. Whether or not she admitted it to him or herself, she needed Clint. And she hoped he survived Scarlotti long enough that she might be able to get his sorry butt outta there.

 _Ok, don't do anything completely stupid Clint._ Natasha thought, just as Clint was pulling out his bow and quiver.

Next thing she knew, he had opened the door and run into the warehouse.

 _That's considered stupid._

Natasha called up Coulson and Fury on her comm, and explained what happened. She could sense that Fury was mad that they disobeyed orders, but he was more occupied that Scarlotti was trying to kill Clint. Coulson must've seen the base before, because he made no comment.

" _Ok. Agent Romanoff, go inside and try to keep Agent Barton alive. We have back-up coming in, ETA about 12 minutes. By the way, if he stays alive, he is in major trouble."_ Fury told Natasha over the comms.

"I will, make sure he knows that, sir." Natasha replied, then ended the call. She didn't need Fury yelling in her ear while she was fighting.

She pulled two handguns from her thigh holsters, and entered the warehouse.

When she did, it was absolute chaos. The guards that had near the entrances had been knocked out lazily near their posts, and some other HYDRA henchmen, lying on the ground in random places. Boxes and crates were smashed and thrown around, along with pretty much else in the warehouse.

Natasha crept along the side of the warehouse, not disturbing the main fight yet.

Scarlotti and Barton were having at it in the center of the warehouse, both causing equal damage. Sometimes, HYDRA henchmen would come in and attack Clint, but he would knock them back and resume fighting Scarlotti.

When another HYDRA agent ran for Clint, Natasha jumped out the shadows and tackled him knocking him out before he could lay a hand on Clint.

"Thanks." Clint shouted over his fight with Scarlotti.

"No problem." Natasha said, flipping over a HYDRA agent. "Oh, also, you're in a heck of alot of trouble with Fury."

"Figured." Clint said with no surprise in his voice.

After all the HYDRA agents were piled in a corner, Natasha jumped in and helped Clint fight Scarlotti.

It had seemed with more competitors, Scarlotti seemed to grow stronger. He punched Clint in the gut, while delivering a roundhouse kick to Natasha's face.

Clint doubled over, and when he did, the door burst open, SHIELD reinforcements here.

Clint then sighed with relief, then turned serious again, to see Natasha on the ground, Scarlotti standing over her aiming to kill.

Clint saw one of her guns, ran over, picked it up and aimed it for Scarlotti.

"Scarlotti!" He yelled out. Scarlotti froze. This let Natasha kick out, making Scarlotti fall to the ground, Natasha and Clint standing over him while SHIELD agents surrounded the building.

"You're over, Marcus." Clint said, still standing over him with the gun.

Scarlotti slowly smiled and said in a thick accent, "Not yet." In his hand, he held a small black device, and when he pushed the button, the warehouse exploded.

Natasha and Clint were thrown back separated. Natasha woke up to find the warehouse ablaze, and struggled to sit up in the smoky air. She stayed low to the ground, looking around, trying to find Clint.

Outside she heard shouts of SHIELD agents and water rushing the warehouse. She crawled on her hands and knees, trying to get out from behind the box that she was thrown behind. She had to find Clint.

She tried to call out his name, but nothing escaped her lips. She found the corner where they trapped Scarlotti, but it was empty. She was running out of air. She needed to find the door. Clint is next, but she needed air.

All of a sudden, the door in the front of the warehouse burst open, and SHIELD agents ran in with fire gear on. Natasha crawled out to one of the agents, collapsed on the ground in front of his feet, and passed out.

 **A/N: Oh No! Clint has disappeared! So has Scarlotti! That can't be good...**

 **Please review!**


	8. Chapter 8

**A/N: Hey guys! Chapter 8! Sorry, this one is pretty short, sorry 'bout that. It's called suspense. Have fun!**

 **Please Review! (I also just figured out how the horizontal lines work so I will try to put them here from now on.. :))**

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Natasha awoke a little bit later outside the smoldering warehouse with some medical professionals attending to her. She stared into a face she did not know that was smiling, saying something she couldn't quite hear. Next thing Coulson came over, helping her off the car she was laying on.

"The doctors cleared you, but you need to be careful. Nothings broken, but they're afraid you pulled some things." Natasha just nodded slowly.

It suddenly dawned on her.

"Where's Clint?!" She asked frantically, looking around.

"We don't know yet, but it looks like we may not be able to get him." Coulson said, looking Natasha square in the eye as her jaws dropped.

"Why not?! He's an agent right?" Natasha asked with disbelief.

"Well, we have messed around with Scarlotti and his HYDRA guys before, and it didn't end out well. Of course, Barton was involved, and a lot of agents died. So Barton created a thing, if Scarlotti ever came back, we were not allowed to interfere. Basically, there's no back-up once we can't find them. And Delta 2 is here controlling the blaze and rounding up HYDRA agents." Coulson explained. Natasha just looked at him more confused.

Coulson sighed. "When we lost a lot of agents, Barton blamed himself, and if we ever ran into Scarlotti again, he was going to take care of him, even if he couldn't. He owed it to the agent's killed in action. He refused to take no for an answer. We can't help him. Sorry."

Natasha glared at Coulson, causing him to awkwardly look down, mumble an "excuse me" and walked away.

Natasha got off the bed of car and fumed. They would not take away her partner! She was going to find him, and bring him back. Rage from the Red Room and everything she'd been through washed over her in a fury. _If he killed Barton, I swear…_ Natasha thought, cutting her thoughts off when she heard a strange noise.

Her training in the Red Room fine-tuned her senses, so she heard a very faint gunshot far in the distance. She started running towards the sound.

Coulson and Fury didn't want to help Clint, whether he said so or not, but nothing said anything about Natasha. And she didn't give a crap on what Clint or SHIELD said.

 _Crack!_ The bullet missed Clint by inches. He was running, or running as well as he could. After the explosion, Scarlotti had jumped up and started to run. Clint woke up to see him escaping, and shot him in the leg with the gun he had somehow held on to.

Clint tried to get up from behind the box and look for Natasha, when Scarlotti all of a sudden came up behind him and knocked him upside the head with a broken board. Clint had fallen unconscious the moment just as Natasha was waking up.

Clint had woken up outside a long while away from the warehouse up against a tree. Scarlotti was leaning heavily against the tree across from Barton, with a gun pointed at his head.

"You thought you could get away from me little birdie, huh?" Scarlotti taunted, waving the gun around. Clint just stayed silent, slowly inching his hand to a big stick on his left.

Then Clint reached the stick, curling his fingers around it, then throwing it straight for Scarlotti. Clint then got up and ran.

Scarlotti blocked the stick, anger boiling up inside of him. _I never missed a kill before, and I'm not going to start now._ He sent off a shot in Clint's general direction, pleased that he could still shoot with his injured leg.

He then watch the SHIELD agent's zig-zag running pattern. _Right, left, right, right, left._ He aimed his gun at the next spot, and shot, hitting it's mark.

Clint heard the shot, and turned around, trying to find where the shooter was. The bullet hit him straight in his gut, and when down. He heard ragged breathing behind him, and he knew Scarlotti was right behind him. He had to keep moving.

Painfully, Clint got up, and started to run, which was pretty much a attempted fast walk, to get away. He couldn't do this forever. He started seeing stars and fell down a few minutes later. He heard Scarlotti come up behind him.

"I always finish." Scarlotti said, raising his gun.

Clint blacked out before the two shots that rang out hit him.

Natasha heard more shots in the distance, and they were louder, so she had to be closer. She picked up her pace when she could see a figure in the distance. She hoped it was Clint.

Coming even closer, she saw the figure that was standing slowly start to walk away, _probably injured_ , Natasha reasoned. She started to worry a little bit more when she saw another figure on the ground, motionless. She started to sprint.

Natasha saw Clint on the ground, blood surrounding him. She looked up and saw Scarlotti pick up his pace, trying to get away. "Oh, no you don't." Natasha said, blood boiling. She ran as fast as she could to Scarlotti, catching up to him in no time.

Two minutes later, Natasha dragged back an unconscious Scarlotti to where Clint was. She dropped him by a tree and rushed to Clint's side. She started mumbling to herself. She saw that two of the bullets were lodged in his sternum, and one in his side. He was breathing, but it was faint and shaky. He needed help fast.

She turned on her comm and explained that she found Barton and Scarlotti, but Clint needed medical attention fast. Medics showed up a few minutes later to see a worried Natasha, covered in blood, crouching over Clint, applying pressure.

When they went and started and IV and oxygen, Natasha was showing actual emotion, her eyes brimmed with tears. When Coulson tried to talk to her, she just walked away, staring at the blood on her hands.

 _Scarlotti almost had him,_ Natasha thought, her sadness turning into rage, _Clint almost died. He saved me, and he almost died._ Natasha got up and walked over to where, in SHIELD hands, Scarlotti was standing up. She walked up, and against the warnings of SHIELD agents, started punching him.

Scarlotti was moved, but Natasha didn't notice, she just punched the tree behind him. Agents tried to restrain her, but it didn't work. She got out of their grip and kept punching the tree, grunting, and silent tears rolled down her cheeks.

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 **A/N: Thanks for reading! Please Review!**

 **Thanks to my 2 awesome followers on this story and, my 2 awesome people who Favorited this!**


	9. Chapter 9

**A/N: Hi guys, sorry this one took a long time to get out.**

 **Warning: this one can be a little "weird" as some of my friends describe it. But please don't hate me for putting Clint through this. I just saw a picture and I wanted to do something like it. So please don't hate me for this, but it was fun to right! I promise, I will be getting people back in order after this chapter.**

 **Please Review!**

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Natasha helped load Clint, who was laying on a stretcher, onto the Quinjet, with a couple a SHIELD as well. The door was just about to close when an agent ran up and yelled, "wait!"

Natasha was actually surprised when Scarlotti was brought aboard the same Quinjet.

"Doesn't this break some rules or something?" Natasha questioned as the agents walked in a buckled Scarlotti into the seat.

The agent closest to her shook his head. "No, directions from Fury." Natasha just slowly nodded, disapproving of his decision.

It was a pretty quiet ride. Scarlotti was silent, and Clint was unconscious, but breathing better. Some doctors on board had managed to somehow get the bullets out of Clint.

15 minutes later, the nightmare started. Scarlotti started to smiled when the Quinjet started to suddenly head closer to the ground. Natasha stood up and walked over to him.

"What is going on?" She shouted.

Scarlotti just smiled and said, "I never miss a kill."

Just then, SHIELD agents started to attack the quinjet, capturing everyone, and knocking anyone out that was not on their side.

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Natasha groaned as she finally started to wake up. Instantly, she tried to stand up, but she realized she was already standing up. She looked up and saw that her hand were tied to a rope on the ceiling. She looked around, and the SHIELD agents that were not HYDRA were given the same treatment as her. She did a mental headcount and saw that they were missing two people.

 _Clint!_ Natasha frantically peered throughout the room, trying to find her partner, to finally see him in the middle of the room, hands also tied together and hung by the ceiling. She was also relieved that Scarlotti was not in the room.

Natasha tried calling to Clint, trying to get him to wake up.

"Clint! CLINT!"

Clint finally shook his head, aware of her yelling. He tried to open his eyes, but it took him a minute to get them halfway open.

Natasha sighed with relief. Clint started to panic when he realized he couldn't touch the ground, stretching his feet as far as he could.

"Clint, calm down, you need to calm down." Natasha saw him slowly stop reaching, and look up noticing the rope.

He lifted his head, grimacing in pain, and looked at Natasha. "Nat.." He started, struggling with his words because he had been out for a long time.

Natasha shushed him and explained what had happened, Scarlotti finding them, Clint getting shot, the doctors fixing him, then getting recaptured by rogue SHIELD agents.

By now, the other agents were waking up. Natasha called out to them, asking them their name.

"Agent Samuel Johnson, level 6."

"Agent Seabass Giordano, level 6."

"Agent Felicity Jones, level 6."

Natasha nodded and started to think of an escape plan, when Scarlotti walked back in, bandages wrapped around where he had been shot.

" _Privet, Chernaya vdova_ _."_ Scarlotti spoke in Russian for his enjoyment. " _How do you your room?_ "

Natasha did not enjoy this. " _Wonderful. 5 stars_ " She replied, sarcasm dripping from her voice.

Scarlotti slowly walked over to the agents. He walked right in front of Agent Seabass. "What is your rank, sir?" Seabass looked over to Natasha for approval, and she shook her head. The agent stayed silent.

Scarlotti was disappointed. "Again," he said, then slapped the agent across the face, "What is your rank?" Seabass kept silent.

"Fine." Scarlotti said, and started to move to the middle of the room, "I know how to make you talk." He walked over to Clint and smiled evilly. Natasha quietly swore. Scarlotti smiled again, and punched Clint in the side where he got shot, making him gasp.

He looked up at Barton. " _How do you like that little birdie_?" He punched him again. Clint was sneering at Scarlotti, annoyed at his playful tone.

"Stop!" Natasha called out. Clint was breathing heavily, and bleeding again from the hits.

Scarlotti clicked his tongue, "Aww, going soft, Romanoff?" Natasha was breathing out through her mouth. She had to keep this act going to draw attention away from Clint. And she was slowly slipping her hands from the rope. She just needed to keep him talking.

" _Why are you doing this'_?" Natasha asked, and managed to get one hand free, but still hiding it.

" _Really? I told you, I never miss a kill_." Scarlotti said. " _I almost got captured, but I got lucky. HYDRA is everywhere. Now, I can fin-"_

Scarlotti was cut off as Natasha jumped out of the ropes. She ran at Scarlotti and kicked him, and made him flying and hit the wall. He stayed down for a little bit, and Natasha ran over and untied the other agents. She saw the guns in the far corner, ran over and grabbed them, and gave them to the agents.

She started to move to Clint, when the door burst open, and seven agents walked, guns drawn. Natasha sighed. She would have to deal with them before she got Clint, and she was exhausted. She was running on pure adrenaline. The SHIELD agents and HYDRA agents already had their guns drawn and were firing at each other, when Natasha realized that leaving Clint hanging in the middle of room wasn't such a great idea.

Scarlotti must've noticed at the same time. He shouted an order from his spot on the wall, and two of the HYDRA-turned SHIELD agents started to shoot at Clint. Luckily, he was unconscious and Natasha got him down without getting shot, and moved him over to the side wall.

Then the battle ensued. Natasha took out a good amount of the agents with her two handguns, and the other agents did fairly well. After the last HYDRA agent was shot, the SHIELD agents spread out to tie up the ones that weren't dead, and try to signal for help.

Natasha was about to help Clint when a steely voice stopped her.

"Do not move" Scarlotti was standing right over Clint, now semi-conscious from all the noise, "Or I clip the little birdie's feathers." Natasha froze, torn on what to do.

"Now," Scarlotti, "I am going to kill him, like I intended to, then, I will kill you. Fair?" A smile played on his lips. "Ready?" He asked, then brought the gun to Clint's temple, who stiffened from the cold metal.

"No…" Natasha whispered. She wasn't going to let Barton die. Not after she thought he was dead. She slowly moved her arm with her gun in it.

Scarlotti saw this movement, but let her have it.

Natasha had the gun leveled at Scarlotti, and in a controlled voice, she said, "Scarlotti, put down the gun."

Scarlotti, looked down at his gun, lowered it to Clint's chest, shrugged and said no. Then he shot Clint.

Natasha shouted and shot Scarlotti, and neat little hole in the middle of his forehead. She threw the gun down and ran to Clint. The bullet had hit near the other wound in his side, and Clint had shaky breaths.

He grimaced in pain and quietly said, "Nat.." Natasha shushed him. "I'm here, I'm going to get you out of his nightmare." She then tried to clean up the wounds as much as she could, until SHIELD came and doctors came and took him out of her arms, silent tears rolling down her cheeks once more.

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"Is he going to live?" Natasha asked Coulson anxiously, outside the surgery room where Clint had been there for four hours.

Coulson sighed, then said, "Yes, but he won't be doing anything for a while. He's going to need to build up strength.

"Good." Natasha said. "Because if he didn't, I would bring him back just to kill him again for being stupid."

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 **A/N: Aw, Clintasha fluff. Basically the whole reason I am writing this story.**

 **So ya, please don't hate me for this, it was just a idea.**

 **And did you like the Russian in their? I plan to use more languages, it is fun to right. Google Translate is AWESOME!**

 **Spasibo za chteniye, Pozhaluysta, oznakom'tes' s!**

 **('Thanks for reading, please review' in Russian :))**


	10. Chapter 10

**A/N: Hello my people! Here is this part of the story!**

 **Please review!**

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(3 months later)

Barton and Romanoff were sparring in the gym when they got called into Fury's office. He said it was urgent, so the duo walked faster than they normally did when going to his office. When they entered, it looked like a tornado hit, and Coulson and Fury where in the heart of it. There were maps and topographical charts spread around the room, drawers were pulled out, files and manilla folders everywhere else.

"Sir, you called for us?" Clint said, standing up as straight as he could when he addressed his superiors. He had been cleared for duty last month after he healed, but Fury was still pissed at the both of them, so they were confined to hanging around the base.

Fury nodded. "I don't want to, but there is another mission for you guys in Delta. I would out any other force on this, but every other force is busy." Clint and Natasha nodded along, excited to be put on a mission again.

"Also against my wishes, this is not an informational mission, this is a rescue mission." Fury said. The assassins' eyes lit up with the information. It was a real mission! "Coulson will give you the information, as well as coming along with you." Fury continued, and Coulson looked up at the pair and gave a messy smile, then went back down to reading the files. "Briefing room, fully dressed and ready to go, Fifteen minutes. Go." Coulson said and the duo sped off.

Twelve minutes later, a fully-decked out Barton and Romanoff were sitting at the table when Coulson sped in with a latte in his hand and files in another. "I see you guys are excited to get back in the field." He muttered. Both agents answered with a crisp "yes, sir!"

"OK," Coulson started. "So here's the deal. Two weeks ago, we sent five agents to Bogota, Columbia for a short informational and recon mission about a local gang that has been terrorizing the area. Four days after they entered, we heard over one agent's comm a struggle, and we haven't been able to reach them since then. We fear the gang got to them. They are all mostly experienced agents, but we want to check anyhow." He passed out files on the agents that were MIA.

There were some agents Clint knew from around the base, and Natasha recognized an Agent Sebastian Giordano, level 7, when dealing with Scarlotti. She wondered if he always got into trouble like that.

"Yes, sir." Clint answered with a crisp mock salute. "When do we move out sir?"

Coulson rolled his eyes at the act. "Tomorrow morning, early. It's going to be a long, uncomfortable flight."

The next morning, as promised, the pair of assassins were knocking at Coulson's door, ready to go.

 _Crap. Coulson was right about uncomfortable,_ Clint thought, as they looked at their ride. It was a six hour flight, and because the gang might see it, they had to ride in the back of a cargo plane instead of a quinjet. They brought blankets and coats because it can get pretty cold, and oxygen masks and tanks, because people aren't really supposed to be in the cargo pit. Half an hour later, the big plane was in air and on the way to Columbia

Natasha crawled out of the little hole her and two men squeezed through after their six hour flight. She rolled some cricks out of her neck and back, and did some stretches and toe touches from being cramped in the plane

Clint groaned. "Coulson, remind me again why we had to stay in the back of a cargo plane, not a quinjet?" He whined, trying to stretch out his arms and legs.

"Because, Barton, if we took a quinjet, the gang would probably see us and we would be dead. We also have new information that not only is this a regular gang, HYDRA is also involved in this. It seems as some of the head leaders are HYDRA." Coulson replied, re-tying his shoes.

"Ugh, HYDRA, again?" Clint groaned lounder. "Why does it always have to be HYDRA?"

Coulson rolled his eyes. "I don't know, Barton, why don't you go up to the head and ask them?"

"Maybe I will. Ok, let's go 'cause I'm getting bored just standing here." Clint said. Coulson nodded and headed to their 4x4 that would take them to the area where the agents are supposedly being held.

Coulson drove Barton and Romanoff as close as he could to the small village where the agents were supposedly at, before turning around and parking it a little farther away, but still accessible. Barton and Romanoff pulled out their respective weapons, and Coulson pulled out his handgun. Then all three turned on their comms. Coulson waved the go ahead sign, and the three started running towards the village.

Surprisingly, there were still civilians around. Natasha thought that if there was HYDRA around, the civilians would be dead or under HYDRA control. But she was wrong. She noticed when herself or Barton or Coulson got near any of them, the panicked and ran into the nearest house.

Clint noticed it too. _Watch out guys, all civilians are scattering, probably a fight._ He warned over his comm set. Natasha grimaced and pushed on with searching the houses.

Coulson was proud. Barton and Romanoff were handling the situation well. He remember trying to train Barton when he was a little younger, a difficult task it proved to be. Barton was impulsive and didn't have a lot of patience, always jumping before thinking. But he was also very loyal, and a good person to be watching your back. And Romanoff, had grown a lot from when Barton brought her in. The two were great partners, and Coulson guessed they would become some of the best.

Coulson was cut short of his memories when he looked into a small house that didn't have anyone in it, except for a large black box in the middle of it, he saw a timer. His eyes widened in fear, and started running for his life. _BARTON! ROMANOFF!_ He yelled over his comm while sprinting away from the building. _GET OUT OF HERE! BOMB!_

 _5...4...3...2...1…_

There was a sudden flash then,

ka-BOOM!

The explosion was deafening. Anyone near the house, would've felt pain for a split second, then be dead. The building around the bomb was completely demolished, there was nothing left.

Natasha and Clint were close together when the explosion happened, but Clint was closest, he was behind the house that was neighbored to the bomb. Natasha was 2 houses over, but both were equally thrown back.

Natasha woke up first, with sharp ringing pounded through her head, and when she tried to open her eyes, light shot daggers through her eyes. She mentally took in her surroundings. She was up against something had, pursuing a wall, and she smelled and tasted burning debris. Those were her only senses that were working. Her ears were still ringing, but less, and she could kind of open her eyes.

When she could open her eyes all the way, all she saw was destruction. The building she was leaning against and surrounding ones were missing pieces of walls in huge, open gaps, and falling debris. She slowly moved her hands over her body, checking for injuries. Her left foot was stuck under a rock, and she probably had a concussion.

Slowly, Natasha started to stand up. She had to find Coulson and Barton. _With his luck,_ Natasha thought, _Barton's probably stuck under a wall dying or something._ Using the wall to support her, she slowly limped closer to the house that held the bomb, trying to find Coulson and Clint.

Ten minutes later, Natasha found Barton. He was out cold, lying in a heap of debris, under a what looked like an unstable rooftop. She slowly pulled him out from under near there, trying not to move him so much, in case he got injured. When he was out, she check over him to see if there were any outstanding injuries, but besides major bruising and cuts and scrapes, there was none.

Natasha was standing out looking out for Coulson, when Clint started to stir. Natasha walked over to him and started to help him sit up.

Clint was worried. He had been out for a while. And there was this constant ringing in his ears, but it slowly started to go away. Clint looked up at Natasha, who was standing over him, saying something. That's when it hit him.

The ringing had stopped, but had been replaced with absolute silence. Natasha was saying something, but Clint couldn't hear it. He started to panic. He couldn't hear anything!

As soon as Clint started freaking out, Natasha knew something was wrong. You don't freak out after someone says, "wake up, sleeping beauty." Natasha looked Clint straight in the eye, who was yelling and screaming. She slapped him and he stopped.

Clint looked back at Natasha and managed to croak out a shaky sentence.

"I can't hear anything."

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 **A/N: Hey guys thanks for reading!**

 **Yay, Clint whump! For the people who like Natasha whump (I don't know who you are but I'm sure you're out there), there will be some of that coming up soon. But for the people who know me, I like Clint whump.**

 **So have fun and please review! Reviews help me sooooo much, and they are awesome to get!**


	11. Chapter 11

**A/N: Heya, sorry i took a while, I was working on another story for Henry Danger over spring break and wanted to finish. But here ya go. Chapter 11, its so far now! I'm happy. So ya, please read and review (is that R &R?) **

* * *

Natasha's mouth hung open and Clint's statement. Those four words were devastating to the archer, who was freaking out, screaming and yelling, trying to hear, tears brimming his eyes.

Natasha was in shocked herself. This could break his career. She was watching Barton freak out, running around hitting walls and debris, tears threatening to spill, while screaming at the top of his lungs.

She started to slowly limp towards him, cautiously, so she wouldn't scare him. Calling to him was useless, so she started waving.

Clint was freaking out. He tried screaming and shouting and pounding, but he couldn't hear anything! In the middle of freaking out, he saw Natasha slowly walking towards him, limping. She was waving her hand, trying to get his attention. He their eyes met, she put a finger to her lips, trying to get him to quiet down. He stopped screaming and walked towards her

Clint walked up to her, tears streaming down his dirty and bloody face as he whispered a small, "Natasha…"

Natasha's heart broke at that. The strongest man she had ever seen, broken and beaten. She put a finger to his lips, and pulled him into a tight hug, where they stayed like that for a long time, Clint sobbing into Natasha's shoulder.

Natasha, was actually enjoying the moment, when she suddenly pulled back. "Coulson." She said out loud. Clint looked at her in confusion, when Natasha recalled back to an earlier mission she had done before where she had to know sign language. _Do you know sign language?_ Natasha signed at Clint. Clint nodded, but softly said, "Only a little bit, basic signs. I can also kind of read lips." Natasha nodded. It wasn't much, but it would work for now.

She looked at him and slowly said the words, "We need to find Coulson." Clint nodded, and the duo set off to find the agent.

When Coulson woke up, he was tied to a chair. He shook his head free of cobwebs and looked around the cell he was in. The dark damp walls were covered in moss and water, and the only light was from a window leading outside, but barred both ways. Another looked showed the missing agents tied to chairs in the same cell. Most were covered in bruises and cuts. Some were awake, but the majority were asleep, heads hanging over their chest.

The ones that were awake, were staring at the new addition to their cell. "Coulson?" Questioning whispers echoed across the walls. "I'm Agent Phil Coulson. Any agent that is awake and responsive able to tell me what's going on?"

One agent piped up from the back. "This is Agent Seabass Giordano, level 7, and I have no clue what happened. The mission was going fine until some agents disappeared, and the rest of us went to go look for them, and we got jumped. We all got stuck down here, where the gang would occasionally take some of us out, and they would come back beaten up. I'm guessing they were looking for information, but as far as I know of, we didn't give anything. They bring down meals twice, once in the morning and once at night. Same system for the whole time we were in here."

Coulson nodded, sizing up the situation.

"Sir? Are there other agents here?" Agent Seabass asked.

Coulson nodded again, but frowned. "Yes, there is backup, STRIKE Team Delta, but unfortunately, those two are our only backup, and I don't know where or how they are after the explosion." He explained.

 _I just hope they come soon._

* * *

Natasha, with her arm around Clint, who was helping her walk, slowly made their way around the village, trying to find an "official" looking building, where HYDRA would be holding the agents and now Coulson. Every so often, Clint would make some unidentifiable noise, trying to hear, but with no prevail.

Then, up ahead, there was a large village house, that seem to be extended behind it, with barbed wire surrounding it.

Natasha snapped her fingers in front of Clint's face, the so far working method of getting attention. He looked up at her and tried her best to sign that she thought the house she thought had Coulson and everyone else in it. He was confused, so she tried again.

"House. Up. Ahead. Has. Coulson. Maybe." She slowly said, so Clint could read her lips. He nodded, and said, "you don't have to go that slow. I can read pretty well, just don't go a mile a minute." Talking was weird when you can't hear yourself. Clint felt the vibrations in his throat and mouth, but he couldn't hear the words. It was an odd feeling.

The two assassins trudged along, closer to the building. Natasha signaled Clint to go do recon, and she waiting around by a tree.

Three minutes later, Clint came back with the information that there was 3 entrances, probably underground building, one guard at each door, and more inside.

"I've had worse." Natasha muttered to herself. She pulled both her Glocks out of her thigh holsters, double checked that they had a full round in. She then pulled Clint's bow off his back and handed it to him, and slowly told him her plan. He thought about it for a minute, and nodded. Then the duo separated, running off in different directions.

Clint wasn't entirely comfortable with Natasha's plan, but he didn't really have much of a choice, not being able to hear and all. He climbed up a tree near to the compound, but not to close to it. He pulled out an explosive arrow, and waited.

Natasha didn't have a lot of time. She ran through the trees, darting back and forth, trying to reach the main entrance. When she found the entrance, she waited a minute, put her guns away, then slowly walked over to the main entrance, looking lost and confused.

"¡Detener! No puedes estar aquí." A guard shouted at the advancing women. Natasha purposely swayed her hips extra and flipped back her hair as she walked up the guard.

 _(Stop! You can not be here.)_

"Lo siento, pero me perdí, y no sé dónde estoy." Natasha responded, pouting her lips and making her eyes well up.

 _(I'm sorry, I got lost and I don't know where I am.)_

The guard fell for it. His first mistake was lowering his gun. His next mistake, was walking closer to Natasha. As soon as he left his post, Clint shot his explosive arrow right at the front door, causing a large explosion. He couldn't hear the explosion, but he felt it. He was in a tree a little too close to the explosion, so the force of it caused him to fall out of his tree.

"Ow." He whined as he hit the ground. "Why do I always pick the highest branch?" He asked himself, but quieted when he remember that he couldn't actually hear himself, and couldn't answer. He kicked the root of the tree. Not hearing sucks.

When he finally got his act together and walked over to where Natasha was, she was tying up the guard to the fence, and grabbed his gun.

"Let's go get Coulson." Clint said, and Natasha nodded in agreement with a wicked smile on her face.

Then the assassins ran into the compound, bracing themselves for anything and everything.

* * *

 **A/N** **: Thanks for reading, the next chapters uploading soon! Thanks for reading! this is my favorite story, but please read my other ones too!**


	12. Chapter 12

**A/N: Hey guys, really sorry I haven't posted in a long time, its been really busy. So here is chapter 12! And please read the bottom, i have a important note there.**

 **Please review! (this story has gotten no reviews and that makes me sad...) :(**

 **P.S. I don't remember if i ever put a disclaimer on here, so here ya go**

 **Clint/Natasha/Coulson: She owns NOTHING!**

 **Clint: She wishes though..**

 **Me: Ya, i know.**

 **Agent Seabass: She owns me though!**

 **Me: Yes, i do. Now, ladies and gentlemen, back to the story...**

 **(Dramatic bow, and the lights go off...)**

* * *

The house above ground was pretty empty, considering the agents that could be held underneath. All the rooms were cleared by Clint and Natasha, bows and guns draw, ready to fire. "Clear!" Clint shouted, as he went through the front rooms of the house. Natasha came to the front, and motioned him to follow her to the back of the house.

 _Entrance back here, trapdoor._ Natasha signed, and led him to the guest bedroom. Underneath a fold-up bed, was a large metal trapdoor.

Clint nodded and slowly opened the trapdoor. He looked at Natasha and signed, _did it make noise?_ Natasha shook her head, and they slid down the ladder.

With both of their weapons drawn, the assassins slowly and quietly walked down the small, dimly lit hallway. Or, at least Natasha was quiet. Clint couldn't hear anything, so he didn't know he was making noise when he walked. She tried to motion him to be quiet, but it didn't work,

While they walked, Natasha saw cells and cells of HYDRA prisoners, but none of them SHIELD agents. She guessed if they took that many SHIELD agents, they would need a big holding area, and in typical buildings, the bigger rooms are in the back.

She was just about to turn around the corner when she heard a gunshot ring out and echo down the halls. She turned to see Clint, wide-eyed, gripping his gun with white knuckles, pointing at an object Natasha couldn't see.

Natasha could tell that Clint was freaking out, so she slowly walked around him, trying not to surprise him. When she came into his vision, he quickly pointed the gun at her, but put it down when he realized it was her.

 _What happened?_ Natasha signed.

 _Guy sneaking up on us. Couldn't hear him, panicked and shot him. Sorry._ He signed back, and smiled sheepishly.

Natasha was about to sign back, when all of a sudden, HYDRA agents flowed in from the two entrances, blocking their escape. Natasha drew her guns, and Clint put his gun away and drew out his bow, both took fighting stances, ready to fight.

Since they had already made their presence known, Clint took two explosive arrows, fired one at one end of the hallway, and the other end, making a deafening noise in the small hallway that Clint couldn't hear.

This held the agents off for a few seconds, making a couple hit the wall, but as soon as the smoke cleared, they were charging again.

Natasha shot two agents heading towards her, then kicked her leg back, hitting an agent in the gut that was trying to sneak up on her, then spinning and shooting him in the head. An large HYDRA goon jumped on her back, making her lose her balance and start to fall forward, in which she used that to roll with the man still on her, making him hit the ground with a thud. His massive arms that were around her released, and she elbowed him in the gut, rolling off him then shooting him point blank. She was about to turn around to fight another when a punch to the jaw cut her off. She hit the ground, slightly dazed, but rolled to the side in time to see a foot come crashing down where she once was. She growled and kicked out, catching the man who tried to stomp her in the back of the knee, where he fell to the floor clutching his knee. She shot him and went to fighting more HYDRA agents.

Clint, who normally was very advanced at hand-to-hand combat, was struggling in this fight. He couldn't hear the agents coming up and fighting him, letting them land a couple good punches before he finally knew they were there. He fired an arrow at the guy who was sneaking up on Natasha with a knife, catching him in the chest. He then quickly spun around and smacked a guy across the face with his bow. He didn't know how he did it, but when there was a bad guy near him, he almost felt as he could sense them standing there. He didn't know how it was happening, but whatever it was, it was sure helpful.

Ten minutes into the fight, the HYDRA agents didn't seem to slow down, but Clint and Natasha sure were. Natasha was frantically trying to think of a way to get out of this alive. She punched a guy in the face when she thought of the idea. Her guns had already run out of bullets, so they were in their thigh holsters, and she was using her fists. After finishing hitting a guy, she suddenly dropped her hands, suffering through a couple more punches, than being grabbed and her hands forced behind her back.

Clint almost screamed when he saw Natasha stop fighting. What was she doing? He saw the guards pull her arms behind her back, pinning them together, as he continued to fight the guys he was dealing with. His eyes met with Natasha for a split second, and just by the way she looked at him, he knew she had a plan. Clint sighed.

A guard said something to the guards fighting Clint, but he couldn't understand them. Trying to go along with Natasha, he stopped fighting and allowed the guards to take him by Natasha, who were then dragged to a dark cell in the back.

The two were roughly thrown in the cell, each hitting with a thump on the hard concrete. Natasha stood up and helped Clint stand up, trying to communicate with him, but it was too dark in the large cell. She would have to rely on physical contact.

She placed her hand on his shoulder, and walked forward into the cell.

"Anyone here?" Natasha called out, peering into the darkness.

"Romanoff?" A voice called out in surprise.

"Coulson?" Natasha returned equally surprised.

Natasha walked towards the voice, Clint by her side, until she reached Coulson. She felt the bonds that kept him to the chair, and after feeling them for a minute, she got them undone.

Coulson rubbed feeling back into his wrists. "Is Barton with you?" He asked, and after Natasha tapped Clint, Clint put his hand on Coulson's shoulder.

"He's, uh, kind of deaf right now. The explosion, he was nearby, and he can't hear anymore." Natasha explained, trying to look at Clint through the darkness.

Coulson mumbled an understanding, then started to move backwards into the darkness.

"What are you doing, sir?" Natasha asked, as she sat Barton down on the chair Coulson was tied to and followed her handler into the inky black.

"The rest of the agents are here also, we have to untie them, so we may have a chance to escape." Coulson replied, squatting down and untied an agent from one of the chairs. Natasha walked over and did the same.

"Thank you." The agent who Natasha untied said, stretching feeling back into his arms and legs.

"Agent Seabass? Are you here again?" Natasha asked, as she stopped and heard the familiar voice.

"Black Widow? You're here too? How do I always get in missions with you that always go wrong?" He said. "N-not that you're the cause of this, ma'am, I just-I need, I-I am just going to shut up now." Agent Seabass stuttered, and a smile tugged on Natasha's face at the flustered agent.

A couple minutes later, all the SHIELD agents were untied, and gathered by Coulson's chair, which was now occupied by Clint, the closest one to the door.

"Ok," Natasha started, "I have a plan and it just might work-" She said, before she was cut off by the cell door bursting open and light flooding in, making everyone blink at the brightness of it.

A HYDRA agent, followed by seven other agents burst through the door. They grabbed the nearest SHIELD agent, and placed a gun at his temple. Agent Seabass mentally groaned and reminded himself to try not to get on missions with the Black Widow, as he was the agent the HYDRA thugs grabbed. He stiffened under the cool metal as the man made demands.

"We need agents." The HYDRA agent spoke in a heavily accented english.

"You." He said, pointing to Coulson, and two guards came up and grabbed his arms.

"You." He pointed at Clint, who was watching in amazement before being hauled up into a standing position from his chair.

"And her." He finished, pointing to Natasha , who spat at the guards when the tried to grab her arms, and that earned her a slap across the face. It stung, but she showed no emotion.

The guards dragged their three prisoners out of the cell, shutting the door, and leaving the rest of the SHIELD agents alone once again in the dark cell.

* * *

 **A/N: thanks for reading guys, please review, and I'll try to get the next chapter uploaded as fast as I can. You know, the more reviews, the faster i might update... (hint hint hint)**

 **Also important thing: If you do review, great for you I'm so happy. But the thing is, it would be greatly apperciated if you wouldn't swear. As you've noticed in my story, I don't swear, so it would be great if you guys didn't either, just for. Go swear up a storm somewhere else, i don't care, just please if you review on here, or any of my stories, please don't swear. I don't mind negative reviews, by all means, i'll take almost anything at this point, just please don't swear. Thanks!**

 **-avengersashley**


	13. Chapter 13

**A/N: Thanks so much for reading guys! I finally got this chapter up, so here ya go! The next chapters will be a little bit longer, because its the...**

 ** _INTERROGATION!_**

 **Dun dun duhhhhhhh!**

 **So ya. sneak peak. Please read and review!**

* * *

Clint watched the hallways as the guards marched him down the twisting hallways. Clint wasn't surprise when the guards didn't talk as they walked, because their lips weren't moving. They stopped at a large metal door with a keypad, which a guard put in a code. The guard was dumb and didn't step in front of it, so Clint saw the numbers being put in

 _18743752_

 _That will be useful,_ Clint thought as the guard pushed open the door and threw Clint inside. He put his arms out in front of him to break his fall, and groaned when he hit some bruises. He looked around his room.

There was a single chair in the middle, some straps connected to the arms and legs of it. _Uh oh._ He thought. The rest of the room was white, the floors, the walls, and the ceiling, there was a single lamp in the middle, right above the chair. On the wall in front of the chair, was a large piece of glass, which, considering he could see himself in, he guessed it was a one-way mirror. He also saw a speaker right below it, probably how they would talk to him. Which sucked, cause he couldn't hear.

Clint looked at himself in the mirror. A disheveled man looked back at him, dirty blonde hair, dark circles under his eyes, various cuts and bruises, but a bright glint in his eye. He had found a way out.

While looking at the mirror, in the right corner, he found an air vent, that was almost big enough for him to squeeze through if he got a chance.

Clint showed no emotion, in fear that people behind the glass were watching, but inside, he smiled. He was going to get out.

* * *

Natasha memorized the the twisting the and turning down the hallways, always left and right. They came to a large door, next to one that looks identical to the two next to it, where he guards put in the code.

 _18743752_

 _Idiots. They show me the code right there._ Natasha thought.

The guards threw her in, and she rolled and landed on her feet easily.

She immediately stood still, and took in her surroundings. It wasn't well lit, a single lamp above a chair, straps hanging off the side. _Torture._ She thought.

The glass was one-way which she noticed immediately. Luckily, her training had showed her how to look through one way glass. Inside was empty, but five chairs sat with a control panel shoved up against the wall. She noticed he air vent on the ceiling, and made note it use it later.

She then slowly walked around the room, hands running against the wall, checking for bugs and cameras. In each corner was a small camera that doubled with audio, so she would always be watched.

She sighed. The first part of her plan was complete. Now to think of a part two.

* * *

Cousin didn't pay attention to his surroundings. Not when his and the other agents only chance of rescue got captured, then separated. Coulson was led to one of three large gray doors with a keypad lock.

 _18743752_

The guard put the code in sloppily, letting Coulson see the numbers, and then he was tossed into the room. The single chair and lamp didn't faze him at all. He had been in many interrogation rooms before and this one was no different.

He slowly looked around the room, taking in every detail and then, sitting down the chair to think.

He pulled his feet up and sat criss-cross in the chair, and pulled out a single Captain America trading card that he kept in his pocket. It was a sort of pacifier for Coulson, moving it around calmed his nerves and helped him think better.

His best agents were probably in the rooms he past. Coulson didn't worry about Natasha, she was a big girl and she could handle herself. Besides, her training kept her cool under pressure. The one weakness that Coulson discovered from Natasha, is while anything could be done to her, and she would stay silent. Do something to Clint, though, and she is easier to break through. But she said she had a plan, and Coulson trusted her.

Clint was another problem. He had the same weakness, he would do anything for Natasha. Clint knew though, that Natasha is tough and can handle it. Natasha doesn't feel the same why if Clint gets hurt.

Normally, Clint can handle interrogations fairly well, having a high pain tolerance and-for once in his life-being able to shut up. Unfortunately, Clint had always relied on his sense of hearing, and Coulson was surprised that he was holding himself together that well. He wouldn't be able to hold up for long, not being able to hear. Coulson wouldn't be surprised if he went crazy. Luckily, Coulson and Clint knew some sign language. Coulson made a mental note to get Stark to make some hearing aids for Clint.

Coulson sighed and went back to playing with the card, wondering what would happen next.

* * *

Clint was somewhat glad to be alone. Being with Natasha, he had to keep sane and "normal" for a recently deaf person.

Clint was going crazy. He was running around the room, screaming and kicking the walls, he had tried to pick up the chair, but had found out that it was bolted to the floor. In the end, Clint was sitting against the corner, crying.

He didn't care if people behind the glass saw him. He was going to drive himself crazy. Not being able to hear, maybe not ever being able to hear again…

Just thinking about it made him go crazy once again. He went around kicking the walls, and ended up at the wall to his right, punching it over and over again, until his knuckles started to bleed. Even then he didn't stop. He wouldn't stop.

* * *

Surprisingly, Natasha could hear the pounding again on her wall. It had been going on a while ago, then it stopped.

She was about it ignore it, until she heard a sort of rhythmic punching. She tilted her head and walked towards the wall. She listened, and it sounded like the punching Clint does at the gym. She had watched him many nights, pounding away at the punching bag, she found the sound almost soothing.

She had to find a way to communicate with him. If only he could hear right now. Instead, Natasha sat down and placed her head against the wall, only to find out she could feel the vibrations through the wall!

She wondered if Clint could feel it as well. Natasha immediately turned around and use her fist to start banging on the wall.

Clint took a break from the punching the wall to wipe off his bleeding knuckles, when he felt pounding come from the other side of the wall. Coulson and Natasha were taken with him, were one of them on the other side of this wall?

Clint hit the wall once and the pounding stopped. He hit it once again, and the other side responded with hitting it once as well. Clint kept his one hand on the wall, and used his other hand to pound on the wall twice. Clint the vibrations of two hits on the other side in response.

Clint laughed out loud, he could feel it! He didn't know if it was Coulson or Natasha, so he decided to try something. Both of them knew Morse code, so Clint went out for a long shot, and started punching out a code.

Natasha listened closely as Clint started hitting something. She recognized the hits and the pauses. He was using Morse code! She listened closely and translated it in her head.

"-. / .- / - / .- / ... / ... / .-"

 _(Natasha?)_

Natasha smiled.

"-.- / . / …"

 _(yes)_

Clint started yelling in joy. Natasha was here! And he could talk to her! _Maybe this won't be too bad._ He thought, already pounding out another message.

* * *

 **A/N: Hey, sorry, I know the Morse code thing is like really lucky, but i couldn't leave Clint totally stranded right? Right?**

 **Thanks for reading and please review!**


	14. Chapter 14

**A/N: Hey guys, I am so so so sorry that I didn't get a chance of updating really soon I am sorry, we were really busy and I didn't get a chance. SO here it is!**

 **BTW AWESOME JOB GUYS! WE DID IT! We've got over a 1,000 views! You guys are so awesome that's great, I love all you guys, you are great.**

* * *

After long hours, or what felt like hours, of pounding out Morse code, Natasha and Clint kinda had a plan. Clint explained that he had been freaking out, and Natasha reassured him, telling him it would be alright. They then talked about how they would get out of there. When a guard would come in, they would attack, and using the code they saw being put in, release Coulson and the other assassin.

Natasha heard footsteps in the hallway, and heard the unmistakeable sound of buttons of the keypad being pushed. She walked behind the door, and when it opened, she threw her fist, catching the guard in the jaw, knocking him out instantly. Natasha dragged him into the room, stepped out, and shut the door.

She walked to the door on her right, knowing it was Clint's because of the wall they were pounding on. She started to put in the code.

 _18743752_

She waited as the door was supposed to open. She started to panic when it didn't. She put the code in again, pressing each button harder.

 _18743752_

She was caught off guard when HYDRA agents ran up behind her, grabbing her arms and pinning them behind her back.

"What-what-I-" She started, but was cut off as a hand was placed over her mouth.

She was dragged into a viewing room and handcuffed to a chair, and when the glass cleared and she saw inside, she gave a small gasp.

She saw Clint running around, hitting the walls, kicking the door. She remembered that was what he explained to her that he was doing before they communicated. He ran over to the wall where they talked and pounded on it, going crazier when he got no answer.

She couldn't take her eyes off Clint, as he ran around, until a new man walked into the viewing room with her.

" _Hola._ My name is Diego. And I need some information." Diego got up close to Natasha, right in her face.

" _No en tu vida_." Natasha replied, spitting on his face. Diego scowled, and slapped Natasha across the face.

 _(Not on your life)_

"Fine." Diego growled, and turned to the mechanic behind him. He started speaking in rapid spanish, and Natasha didn't bother to interpret it. A man pressed a button, and a yellowish gas started to slowly creep into the room. Natasha stifled a gasp, trying to mentally warn Clint about it.

Natasha watched helplessly as Clint noticed the gas, and ran to the door, pounding on it and screaming. His screams haunted Natasha, the entire time as she slowly watched Clint's eyelids close, and eventually his entire body collapsing.

Natasha kept silent as HYDRA thugs entered the room, picking the unconscious Clint off the ground and placing him in the chair, strapping his arms and legs down, but nothing to support the top part of his body, so it hung forward.

Natasha heard Diego making some other commands about bringing the other man in, and not much later, Coulson was brought in, shooting death glares at his guards. He was sat down in the chair next to Natasha, and when he looked out the window, his lips pressed tightly together.

He leaned close to Natasha. "What happened to Clint? Is he all right?" He whispered.

Natasha grimly shook her head. "No. He's going crazy from not hearing. And now he's unconscious from gas. I'm afraid they're going to torture him." Coulson sighed and looked at the ground.

"How far are you in getting out?" Coulson asked. He noticed the movement of her hands against the armrests.

"My left wrist is almost out, they didn't put that one too tight. But I may have to dislocate my right one to get it out." She said under her breath.

Coulson nodded. "Get on it."

"So, since you all seem to want to cooperate _so much,_ " Diego said, waving his hands to the two guards standing next to Clint's chair, "we will use extra persuasion." Diego left the room that Natasha and Coulson were in with four guards and entered the room with Clint.

He looked through the one-way glass and smiled, seemingly straight at Natasha, and said something to the guards.

The guard to the right of Clint swung his hand back and slapped Clint across the face. Clint's head snapped back and the gas that made him lose consciousness seemed to wear off, due to his eyelids fluttering.

" _Hola,_ Mr. Barton." Diego got up into Clint's face. Clint blinked a couple times and stared straight back into Diego's steely gray eyes. Diego smiled and Clint smirked back, then spat blood from the slap into his face. Diego growled and stepped away, wiping the blood off his face.

" _Stupido._ Just like that Romanoff. _Idiotas."_ Diego shouted, and as Clint read his lips, his face paled.

"Romanoff." He whispered under his breath, worried about what might've happened to her.

Diego heard this and suddenly turned. "Did you say Romanoff?"

Clint shrugged because he couldn't read his lips then. "I don't know." He rasped, voice dry, "your explosion kinda made me deaf so I can't actually hear." Clint smiled, his attempt to try to give some emotion to Diego's staring eyes, but instead, an evil grin grew on Diego's face.

"So. Ms. Romanoff. Someone special, yes?" Diego said it very slowly, so Clint could see the words on his lips.

Clint's eyes flashed for a second of pain and then anger as he stayed silent.

Diego was clever and watched Clint's eyes, and smiled deeper as he saw the micro-expression. "So, the lady is of interest." Diego paused, letting Clint's eyes dart around the room, after he read his lips.

Diego grabbed Clint's jaw, forcing Clint's eyes to be looking at Diego's lips, as he spoke, slowly and clearly, so Clint could see every last one of his words.

"Well, I say is of interest, but I guess I should say _was_ of interest." Diego said, as Clint stared as his lips confused. "To say it easier, the famous Black Widow? Finally dead." Diego said, then stood up, and walked out of the room with his guards. Clint sat there, face drained of color, jaw to the ground, unable to understand the words he just read.

 _Natasha, dead?_

Clint couldn't believe it. He wouldn't believe it. Diego was a liar, and a master of manipulation.

But that doesn't mean he doesn't kill.

Clint stared at the door, as a single tear escaped his eye and ran down his shocked face, that Natasha, his partner, his teammate, his best friend.

Dead.

* * *

 **A/N: YAY! CLIFFHANGER! Sorry if I'm late again for posting, I'll try not to be! :)**

 **Adios!**


	15. Chapter 15

**A/N: Hey guys, here is the next chapter, sorry this one took me a while to do, just cause I had so many places I wanted to go with this. But here ya go! Enjoy!**

 **And finally**

 **I GOT MY FIRST REVIEW FOR THIS STORY! YAAAAAAAASSSSSSS YOU GUYS ARE SO AWESOME! But could I have some more please? :)))**

 **Reader: One, thank you so much for reviewing, it feels great, and second thanks I'm glad you like the story! Thanks again fro reviewing!**

* * *

Diego laughed inside the room behind the one-way mirror with Natasha and Coulson still tied to the chair. Natasha was in the middle of almost getting her other hand out, when she saw Clint when he was talking to Diego. He was shocked, and angry. "What did you tell him?" Natasha growled at Diego.

Diego turned and laughed at her. "Oh nothing, just that I killed you and he would never see him again, blah blah all that _fun_ stuff."

Natasha stared at Clint. He was pulling at the straps that held him to the chair with ferocious force. She stared at his steel gray eyes, once calm, collected and bright, now burning with fury. She had never seen him this angry before. Natasha turned to Coulson and he looked as surprised as she was.

"Well." Diego said, pulling another chair over and sitting down in front of the glass. "Those are grade-A straps, I have muscle men and escape artists who can't even get out of those. This should be good." He leaned back in his chair, crossed his legs, and put his hands behind his head.

Five seconds later, Diego leaned forward, amazed, as he watched Clint, with seemingly superhuman strength, tense his arms and break the straps by only pulling up. Clint then quickly undid the straps on his legs and ran around the room, banging his fist on several places, trying to find a weak spot.

"Well, I have definitely never seen that before, _oh Dios mio._ " Diego said, jaw still dropped from the feat. He suddenly straightened back up and dusted off his uniform. "Well, those are titanium doors, nothing can get through the four inches of pure-" Diego was cut off as he watched Clint calmly walk up to the door, and with amazing strength kick down the heavy metal door.

" _MIERDA!"_ Diego yelled and started yelling commands to guards in the room.

 _(crap)_

Natasha started laughing, small at first, then louder and louder.

"What's so funny?" Diego hissed, and got in her face.

"Oh nothing." Natasha said and finished laughing. "It's just that you never, ever, piss off Clint. Then all heck will break loose." She smiled, and then indeed, all heck broke loose.

Natasha had gotten her hands free of the cuffs and quickly brought them up, wrapping them around his thick neck. His eyes bulged and his hands grasped at his throat. He made some gasping and gurgling noises, before his eyes started to roll back into his head.

Natasha got close up to his face and whispered in his ear. "Clint may not care if you die, but I need some information later." With that Diego passed out, and Natasha released her hold on him, letting him drop to the floor, watching his chest slowly rise up and down, a sign that he was, unfortunately, still alive. She grabbed the keys out of his pocket, and unlocked the handcuffs holding Coulson to the chair.

"Thanks." He said, rubbing his wrists. Then together, him and Natasha cuffed all the men in the room together, but left Diego.

"What are you going to do with him?" Coulson asked, and pointed to the unconscious man on the floor.

"We're going to take him with us."

"Ok, so how then? We can maybe put him in the chair and drag him…" Coulson stopped talking as Natasha lifted up the heavy man with surprising ease and put him over one shoulder in a fireman's carry.

"Sure, just carry him, then, ok…" Coulson was talking to himself as they walked out the door.

Natasha grunted and she shifted the man over her shoulder, and drew her gun from her holster. Coulson looked at her and she explained.

"Clint thinks I'm dead, he can't hear, and he's being chased by HYDRA agents. It's probably best if you have your gun drawn."

Coulson nodded and pulled out his Glock.

The assassin and handler walked slowly down the halls, the screams and crashes getting increasingly louder.

Natasha had put her gun in it's holster for a second and she moved to shift Diego again, when a screaming HYDRA agent came bursting through the wall, and falling silent as he hit the floor. Through the hole, Natasha saw Clint, fighting with a fury she had never seen before. His eyes were hard and fists were clench when he ran out of soldiers to punch, and started to run off in search of more.

"Дерьмо." She said, and started to run after him.

( _Crap)_

When her and Coulson finally found him again, he was moving slower. He was still angry, but more and more punches were hitting him. There was a gash right above his eyebrows that would probably need stitches, his lip was split, and he there was a mysterious red spot on his legs that didn't seem to be bothering him.

Natasha moved over to Coulson. "Watch him." She said, and dropped Diego into Coulson's arms. He grunted and the weight and trying to hold him, and resulted in just letting him on the ground. He wondered how Natasha could hold up his weight…

Natasha moved quietly around Clint, until she was facing him. Just as a HYDRA agent came up and punched him in the gut, Natasha snuck up behind him and snapped his neck.

Clint stood, mouth hanging open, staring at Natasha. "N-Natasha?" He struggled to say, his voice hoarse from not being used.

She nodded and stepped forward, and he started signing.

" _He said you were dead?"_

Natasha smiled. " _I don't look very dead do I?"_

Clint laughed, Natasha recognizing the old Clint, who enjoyed jokes and sarcasm.

" _I found Coulson, too. How about we go kick some butt?"_ Natasha signed, and Clint eagerly agreed.

As they walked back, Natasha picked up Diego and heaved him over her shoulder.

" _Who's that?"_ Clint signed. Coulson and Natasha looked at each other, and quickly, Coulson signed back, " _No one important."_

Clint shrugged. " _Here let me take him."_ He signed, and moved to take him off Natasha's shoulders

Coulson started signing frantically, " _No, no Clint, it's alright, Natasha can carry him-"_ He stopped signing when he saw his face.

Clint swore in Russian, a word that made Natasha blush. "It's him." He muttered under his breath.

Clint made a lunge for Diego, but Natasha jumped back, and placed a hand on Clint's chest, stopping him.

"Clint, read my lips. This is the guy that told you I was dead, yes I know, but you can't kill him. We need him for information." She said, pronouncing each word carefully. She watched his eyes go from fiery to and oddly calm. He nodded, and the tension in Natasha's shoulders relaxed.

" _Just one time though?"_ He signed with a smile. Natasha smiled, and nodded, and Clint closed his fist and took a powerful swing to Diego's face. Clint called him a name in Spanish that Coulson would definitely not repeat in the briefing to Fury after the mission.

"Ok." Coulson said, drawing his gun. "Get ready. I heard more reinforcements are coming. We need to go down the the cells and get the rest of the agents. Then we will have a chance."

Natasha drew out her one gun that had bullets left, her other one empty which left it useless.

Clint gritted his teeth, and cracked his neck and knuckles. " _I'm ready."_ He signed.

" _Clint, also, when we get back, we are checking out that leg, it's not looking too good."_ Coulson signed at Clint, and pointed at his leg, where the mysterious red stain kept growing larger.

Clint shrugged, and they all started running towards the cells.

* * *

 **A/N: Hey thanks for reading, the next chapter should be up soon, it is going to be an epic battle scene, if I can write it good...**

 **And sorry about the "all heck broke loose" I know, it's supposed to be the other thing, but I don't swear so if ya don't like it don't read it. Sorry**

 **This chapter was really fun to write, please please review! Thanks**


	16. Chapter 16

**(SORRY I HAD TO RE-UPLOAD THIS CHAPTER IT DIDN'T REALLY WORK VERY WELL SO HERE IT IS)**

 **A/N: Heeeeeyyyyy guys, I'm baaack! Sorry It's taken me a really long time to update, probably cause its the end of the school year and yada yada ya, So I probably won't be able to upload anytime soon. But yes, please still read, and if you like it, read my other stories too.**

* * *

As they ran from the interrogation rooms, Coulson was calculating their chance of their survival. Natasha and himself were the only one who had weapon, each and gun with only one round each, probably less.

Clint, on the other hand, was injured from fighting, and had no weapons, other than himself. Which Coulson wasn't that concerned, because by himself, Clint could be very dangerous. But considering the shape he was in, plus being recently deafened, Coulson was kind of worried.

The three of them stopped by the door that led out of the interrogation rooms. " _You ready?"_ Natasha signed to Coulson and Clint. They both nodded, so Clint moved to the side of the big metal door. Coulson drew his gun and stood in front of it. He looked at Clint and nodded. Clint kicked the door in, slamming to against the wall. Coulson and Natasha moved in, Clint following up behind them.

Three guards that were stationed outside the door where cut down by Coulson's and Natasha's bullets, and they checked the rest of the hallway.

"Clear!" Natasha called out.

Coulson started signing. " _Do either of you remember which way they led us?"_

Natasha raised her hand, and Coulson gestured for her to take the lead. She pushed open the door, and started sprinting down the twisting hallways, going right and left from what she remember when the guards took the interrogation rooms. Clint and Coulson were right on her heels, Coulson shooting the guards that showed up and tried to stop them.

" _That was easy."_ Clint signed as they reached the cell where the rest of the agents were held.

" _Yeah, a little too easy."_ Coulson signed back, as Natasha put down the unconscious Diego and started searching the pockets of the dead guard for the keys to the cell. She found them and quickly ran it over to the door, unlocking it. Coulson ran inside and starting explaining how they were going to escape.

Natasha took Clint aside separately, under a dim light, and started signing.

" _Clint, when we get out, you need to go first, ok? No waiting. Especially for me. You're injured, and you can't hear. So if that means leaving me behind."_ Natasha watched Clint's jaw working back and forth, an obvious sign that he wasn't happy.

" _Ok?"_ Natasha asked for confirmation. Clint shook his head and started signing.

" _No. What the crap Tasha? I'm not going to leave you here. I don't care if I'm hurt, if you're hurt, if Fury himself is dying I'm not leaving here without you. That's final."_ Clint finished and walked over to Coulson. Natasha stared as he walked away, a small limp becoming obvious as his leg got redder.

"боже мой." Natasha muttered, exasperated. How hard was it to get rid of Clint?

 _(oh my gosh)_

She walked through the cell door, half-listening to Coulson's "elaborate" plan, which consisted of just storming the building. They weren't looking for information, they were just trying to get out alive. Weapons were kept in a nearby room, poor planning on HYDRA's part, where tired and battered SHIELD agents lined up and grabbed a weapon.

One by one, each agent was lined up against the wall of the cell, armed and ready to run. When everyone was ready and accounted for, Coulson motioned to Clint and Natasha. Natasha picked up Diego and slung him over her shoulder.

"Listen up, agents. We have one shot at this, and we can not screw it up." Natasha yelled in a professional voice to all the recruits. "We don't know how many HYDRA agents are out there, so have your weapon ready. And they will not hesitate to kill you, so shoot to kill." Her mouth turned into a grim smile. "And don't die. Everyone ready?" Shocked agents nodded their heads, so she turned to Coulson, and he kicked down the door.

Clint ran out first, heading the opposite direction than the advancing mob of SHIELD agents.

"Where the crap is he going?" Coulson shouted at Natasha

"He said he need to get his bow."

Coulson rolled his eyes. His bow was like a baby to him, and Coulson wondered how many times he could've died trying to get it back.

Natasha watched Coulson's annoyance and laughed. "He'll be fine."

Coulson just mumbled an answer she couldn't hear and kept running.

Agents swarmed the small hallways, occasional gunshots firing and some screams from HYDRA guards. Otherwise, it was weirdly quiet. Natasha kept expecting for someone to jump out with an automatic and mow everyone down, but no one came.

"There's the exit!" Agent Seabass shouted from the front of the pack.

Just then, Clint ran up beside Natasha, bow and quiver slung across his back. She noticed he was sweating and breathing heavy. She looked down at his leg, and the red was bigger than before.

" _Are you ok?"_ She signed, surprised at his tiredness, cause he could normally run miles without sweating.

" _I'm fine. Let's just get out of here._ " He signed back, but his facial expressions said otherwise. Natasha frowned, but kept going.

* * *

Once every agent was out of the base, they hid around the side of the house. Agents reloaded their weapons, or fixed bandages on wounds. Natasha pulled Coulson aside, away from the other agents.

"I think they are going to ambush us, because that was way too easy." Natasha said with a frown. Coulson's eyebrows moved together, making lines on his forehead.

"That might be possible, but then again, when we were brought inside the base, there weren't that many agents anyhow." He shot back.

"True, but I think we should still be careful."

Coulson nodded, and headed back to sign with Clint. Natasha scanned the horizon, finding nothing out of the ordinary, which made everything more suspicious. She was cut off from her concentration, when a sharp whistle brought her back to reality. She turned, and she saw Coulson urgently waving her over.

She started to jog over, but started to sprint when she saw Coulson leaning over Clint.

"What's going on?" She demanded

Coulson sighed, and stared at Clint, who was staring at the sky, teeth gritting against each other in pain. "Clint happened. That blood stain, is a gash that runs down most his thigh, and not only that, his knee is completely dislocated."

"Geez, Clint, how do you go through stuff like this without noticing." Natasha said and put her hands on her hip. Clint just gave a small smile in return.

"Well, either way, were are going to have to relocate his knee before we even have a chance to move him." Coulson said. "And I'm going to need some help. Get another agent."

Natasha looked around the area, and found Agent Seabass, who always seems to be with her.

"Seabass!" She called out, and the agent sprinted towards her.

"Yes, ma'am?" He replied, his voice shaking a little from being in the presence of Black Widow.

"We need your help." She replied, and they walked over to Clint. Coulson had each of them to help Clint sit up against a wall, and hold his arms back. Coulson moved down to Clint's leg.

"Ok, Clint? This is going to be extremely slow and painful. Are you ready?" Clint tensed, and nodded.

Coulson used one hand and grabbed his leg right below the knee, and the other hand on the side of the knee so he could push it in. Slowly, Coulson pulled Clint's leg and pushed his knee inside. Clint was straining against Agent Seabass and Natasha's grip, almost breaking bit his lip to keep the scream from coming out in the back of his throat.

"Almost done, Clint, you're doing great." Coulson said, and with that, He pushed Clint's knee back in, and Clint couldn't hold back anymore. He screamed, and fell back against the wall, sweating profusely.

"There ya go, you're all done." Coulson said, and stood up to wipe his hands on his pants. "I'll help you walk, but we need to get going." Agent Seabass and Natasha helped Clint stand up, who put no weight on his leg, and Coulson slung and arm underneath Clint arms to help him.

"Ok, let's move." Coulson called out, and Natasha grabbed the still unconscious Diego, and they all moved.

Natasha led the group, tense and ready for an ambush. All of a sudden, she heard the whirring of helicopter blades from above. She stopped, and to her relief, it was the helicarrier, come to get them out of Bogota. Finally.

* * *

 **A/N: Thanks so much for reading! BTW, I looked it up, that is actually how your supposed to relocate a knee, but I'm not a doctor, and the internet isn't always right so idk...**

 **And sorry for the abrupt ending, but I kinda ran out of ideas. So ya, please review, I read everyone of those! They make my day!**


	17. Chapter 17

**A/N: Hello peeps, I know I said I wasn't going to update soon, but I had the time so I did! This was a kinda long chapter, a little more than normal. But ya, have fun! And please please review!**

* * *

After dropping Diego into the outstretched arms of SHIELD agents, Natasha sat heavily on her bed in her room. She saw Coulson take Clint to the infirmary, but she knew he wouldn't be there long.

When Coulson brought Clint to the infirmary, nurses started to surround Clint, putting in an IV, and doing other various tests. They applied a brace made by Tony Stark, which had little needles in with pain medicine to lessen the pain. Coulson stayed in the room with Clint for an half and hour before leaving, when Clint looked to be asleep. As soon as Coulson left, Clint struggled out of the bed, slowly taking out the IV, testing his good foot on the ground. As soon as he realized he could use it, he slid his other leg out from underneath the cover. He grit his teeth when his leg hit the edge of the bed, but placed it on the ground.

He used his arms to push himself up off the bed, his screaming muscles protesting the movement. Using one leg to stand up, the stitches on his thigh and his knee from his other leg didn't let Clint put pressure on it. So he grabbed whatever was in his reach and almost pulled himself along, groaning every little bit from the extra work. Making it to the door, Clint stuck his head out, looking each away, looking for the pesky nurses that took care of him. Making sure it was clear, he took slowly and painful steps from the infirmary to the section where the SHIELD agents dorms were. He considered going to his room, but decided against it.

When Clint reached Natasha's door, he was exhausted. He didn't even knock, he just slumped against the door, fumbling for the doorknob. When he finally got it open, Natasha stared at him from her bed. She was sore and tired, but not as bad as him. She got up and helped him to her bed.

" _You stayed there longer than I expected. I thought you would've been here about an hour ago._ " she signed with a small smirk as she helped him lay down. No one had given him anything for his ears yet, so he still couldn't hear.

" _Shut up._ " He signed back with a small smile himself. " _Coulson was pretty much standing guard the entire time, so I didn't have a chance until then_."

Natasha pointed down at his brace. " _You kept that though."_

He nodded. " _It helps. I just wish they'd give me something for my hearing though. This is getting really annoying."_

Natasha nodded. " _I know, Clint. I'm sure someone is working on something. But you need to sleep. If I didn't know you any better, I would've sent you back to the infirmary."_

Clint smiled. "Thanks." He said, voice dry and raspy.

" _Sleep."_ She signed, and Clint closed his eyes. She sat on the corner of her bed, playing with Clint's hair, humming a Russian lullaby she knew. When he was asleep, she slipped out of her room, and set out to find Coulson.

* * *

Coulson watched as guards took the now-conscious Diego to the cells at Fury's direction.

"Make sure he is locked up tight. I want a guard here 24/7." Coulson told on agents as he walked away. "Not after Barton." He mumbled under his breath.

"You really have to stop worrying about Barton, he's reckless and an idiot, but he wouldn't get himself killed without telling you." Natasha said from her spot in the corner. Scaring Coulson. He swore under his breath.

"I know, but the idiot _is_ going to get himself killed because he mouths off so much. I can't stop worrying about him. He reminds me of how I used to be. And he's still much like how he was when we picked him up. Stubborn and Impulsive." Coulson said, sitting down in a chair outside the cells and putting his hands on his head.

Natasha sat down next to her handler. "How did Clint come here? He never talked about it."

Coulson looked up. "Did you ask?" Natasha looked down at her feet and shook her head.

Coulson gave a small a laugh. "Well he'd would've said no anyhow. The best way to get information out of him is to get him drunk." Coulson took a deep breath.

"I'm not going to tell you everything, because not everything is mine to tell. But we picked him up when he was a teenager, from a circus. He joined one when he ran away from his abusive and foster parents, mainly the father. So him and his brother ran away, when a circus picked them up. Except that it was a "circus of crime" of sorts. They stole from their customers, and other people. Then the main thief started to embezzle money, and Clint tried to stop him. You know how that went. Then we picked him up, while working as a thief. We trained him, but he was stubborn, annoying, just like his is now. He was reckless on a lot of missions, but, to be honest, he's gotten better with you." Coulson finished with a sigh. He looked up at Natasha. "So thanks. I couldn't deal with a 27-year-old Clint that acts like he's 16."

"He's 27?" Natasha asked. Coulson nodded. "How old are you?" Coulson asked.

"Two things. One: you never ask a woman her age. And two: I'm 25." Natasha replied. "Now, I came here to ask you something. Hearing aids. Clint's still deaf. What are we gonna do about that?" Natasha said. Coulson slapped a hand to his forehead.

"Oh, I almost forgot about that. Go back with Clint, I'll take care of the hearing aids." Coulson said, and Natasha walked back into her room.

Coulson whipped out her phone, going through the list of contacts, until he found the one he was looking for.

He hit it and the number started ringing. After a few rings, they picked up.

"Yeah, hey." Coulson said. "I'm going to need a favor."

The receiver mumbled something through the phone.

"Yes, this time I won't threaten to taser you and watch Super-nanny." Another pause. "Yes, I know the show is horrible. This time, I need some hearing aids."

* * *

 **A/N: Do you know who is going to get Clint hearing aids? I gave a pretty big clue, so you should be able to guess it. If you have an idea, REVIEW! Reviews always help!**


	18. Chapter 18 (READ AN!)

**A/N: Hey guys, lookie here, I actually posted another chapter on the next day! That's never happened before. Also, just saying, the Bogota mission, is after the first Thor and the second Iron Man. I couldn't really think of anything to write before those, so ya.**

 **YAYAYYAYAYAYAYAYAYAY! Another review! You are awesome!**

 **SuperBookNerd1276: Thank you for your review, I'm glad you like the story.**

 **So ya, enjoy!**

* * *

"So you've made hearings aids that can survive both missions _and_ Barton?" Coulson asked the slightly-but-only-slightly-taller-than-him man.

The man nodded. "I'm glad you came to me, Phil. I'm the best of the best, and I can guarantee that these will survive basically anything."

Coulson shrugged. "If you say so, Tony." He started to walk down the hallway of the infirmary. "Come on, Barton's down this way."

Knocking on the door, Coulson heard no reply. Knocking harder, there was still no answer. Coulson muttered curses under his breath, and slowly opened the door, expecting the worse. Coulson poked his head in, taking a sigh in relief and frustration when he saw it was empty.

"Where's feathers?" Tony asked, looking around inside too.

"Probably in Natasha's room. I shouldn't be surprised he isn't here, he doesn't like doctors." Coulson replied, already walking out the door, Tony on his heels.

Five minutes later, three sharp taps brought Natasha to her door. Opening it up, she saw Coulson standing in her doorway, with none other than Tony Stark.

"Stark." She said, almost a growl.

"Natalie! Or Natasha? I never no what name you're going by these days." He pushed his way into her room. "Now, where the little birdie?"

Natasha glared at Stark, then turned to Coulson. "Why did you bring him on this?" She growled. Coulson took a step back and put his hands up in the air.

"Calm down, he was the only one that I could get on hand that could get us reliable hearing aids quickly. Just trust him, he knows what he's doing." Coulson quickly explained.

"Well I don't trust him." Natasha replied, and stalked off to get Tony out of her fridge that he was raiding.

"I get Barton, just, don't break anything." Natasha called out, just as Tony dropped the glass he was holding, and shattered on the tiled floor. She sighed and left the room. She re-entered with a limping Clint in tow, and sat him on a kitchen chair.

" _Stark is here with hearing aids, so stay awake."_ She signed in his face, where Clint's eyes were slowly drooping. He shook his head, and wiped his eye, trying to get the grime off his face.

"No offense, feathers, but you stink. You need a shower." Tony said as he approached Clint. Natasha signed it for Clint, and Clint turned to Tony and gave him the bird. Tony just laughed.

"Lucky you, these hearing aids can do a lot of things. They are waterproof, explosion proof, fireproof, but if you step on them, they break, so try not to. You can also wear them at night." Stark said, and held out the small items out in his hand. Natasha translated, and Clint nodded,

Clint took them out of Tony's hand, and looked at them for a minute. Tony pointed out various buttons, the volume button, the on/off button, and other various items. Cautiously, Clint turned up the volume a little bit, and placed him in his ears.

"Can you hear me?" Tony said normally.

Clint instantly covered his ears with his hands, and shouted at Stark. "Don't yell, jeez."

Stark shook his head, and went behind Clint. He messed with some controls on the back of the hearing aids. "I wasn't. The range on this is large. Is this better."

Clint nodded his head. "I can hear." He was surprised at how hoarse his voice was. He took a minute to just listen, with the increased hearing, he could hear his own heartbeat, Coulson's, Natasha's and Tony's breaths. He heard some water running through pipes, and some footsteps in the hallway. It felt great to hear again, it was getting really annoying not being able to hear.

"Thanks." Barton mumbled, hoping the billionaire had heard it so he wouldn't have to say it again.

"What did you say, Feathers?" Tony asked, leaning in closer.

Clint stared daggers at the man, but a little louder said, "Thanks. For the hearing aids."

Tony smiled. "Aw, now that wasn't so hard now was it. Well, I'm hungry, and Ms. Romanoff has nothing good eat here, so I'm off. I heard of a good chinese place downtown, and I want to check it out." And with that, Tony Stark left the room.

Coulson looked between the assassins. "Do both of you hate him?" He asked in disbelief.

The eagerly nodded.

"It was difficult in Malibu." Natasha said, scowl on her face.

"We had just never gotten along." Clint said, and started to get up. He placed his hands on the table, and slowly limped around the broken glass still on the floor to the fridge, getting some water.

Natasha moved to help him, but Coulson stuck out his hand to stop her. Behind Clint's back, he started signing.

" _Let him do it. He needs the practice. He won't want to go to physical therapy, so you're going to have to help him. Watch."_

Coulson stopped signing and turned to Clint. "So Clint, now you can hear, you know that with your knee, you're going to have to do some physical therapy."

Clint turned on a dime, with surprising speed for just dislocating his knee.

"No. No physical therapy. Not again." His voice low, and menacing.

Coulson turned back to Natasha. "See? There ya go. He's all yours. Have fun." Coulson then walked out of the room, and shut the door behind him. Clint moved back to his seat and sat down with a grunt.

"Why don't you like physical therapists?" Natasha asked, sitting across from him.

Clint just shook his head. "Too cheerful. Most of them act like they know how it feels to get shot or broken bones in seven different places, but they really don't. They also have fake enthusiasm."

Natasha just nodded. "What happened to the ones that tried."

Clint blew air out of his cheeks. "Well, the three that Fury sent in, they all walked out and quit."

Natasha laughed. "You are stubborn."

Clint nodded. And he slowly got up. "Well, I'm bored. So I want to go shoot something. I'll be back in a couple hours."

Natasha got up faster and stood up in front of him. "Nuh-uh, mister. No bow until you can walk and jump and crap without a brace." She said, placed her hands on her hips and gave a small smile.

Clint frowned and swore at her in sign language, and turned around. "Then I'm going back to bed."

* * *

 **A/N: YAY! Stark was here! Now I don't know how often I'm going to put in other Avengers or people in here, I haven't decided yet.**

 **Now, coming to the big thing. So this story is getting kind of long, I think 18 chapters now? I lose count. So here's my problem. In the MCU, this story comes up to right about after Iron Man 2. What I haven't decided yet, is how I'm going to keep going. I don't really want to write about Clint and Natasha's involvement in other peoples movies, except for Avengers, and Avengers: Age of Ultron. So the main content of this will be missions I think of for them.**

 **(BTW, if anyone has a mission they want me to make them go on, or if you want special characters or something, review and tell me, cuz I can't use PM, but I will gladly add them).**

 **But for the rest of this, I haven't decided if I want to make another story, kind of a sequel, for the later missions/movies (like avengers or age of ultron) or just keep adding it to this story. If you have an opinion, review and tell me.**

 **If you have an comments at all, REVIEW! Reviews are always great. (Just please keep the swearing to a minimum :)**

 **Thanks peeps, you guys are the best *gives high fives and fist bumps to everyone***

 **I'm out!**


	19. Chapter 19

**A/N: Hey guys, I finally got an update in! Sorry it took so long, I'm in the middle of finals and I need to study and stuff. So there will definitely be lots more posts once that is over.**

 **So here ya go! There will be another mission for STRIKE Team Delta soon (as soon as I think of one...)**

 **Please Review! They always make my day and they are so great.**

* * *

 **Time Skip- Next Month**

* * *

Natasha grabbed the two steaming mugs of coffee from Clint's coffee maker from inside his room. She had let herself in his room long ago, while he was still asleep, and she needed coffee. She placed her mug on the table, and walked across the room to the door that led to Clint's bedroom.

Balancing the mug in one hand, she used her other hand to knock on his bedroom door. She heard a groan from the inside, and some some shuffling.

The door opened, to show a sleep-deprived Clint, leaning against the door frame.

"What?" He rasped, clearly not happy to be woke up.

Natasha waved the cup of coffee in front of his face. "Coffee. Now get moving, we have work to do." Clint reached for the coffee, only to get pulled out of reach by Natasha. "Get dressed, idiot." She said, looking down at the duvet wrapped around him. Clint groaned and slammed the door.

Natasha stepped back and leaned against the wall beside his door, crossing her legs. A couple minutes later, Clint came out, wearing a t-shirt and sweatpants.

He looked at Natasha, and held out his hand, expecting the coffee.

Natasha shook her head and gave a small smile. "No coffee until you can walk, run and jump. Then coffee. Then a couple laps around the hallways, then you're free to go."

Clint stared at Natasha, and muttered some choice words under his breath. The two walked into the kitchen, where Clint immediately realized that all his coffee stuff was gone.

"Where is my coffee?" He growled, turning to Natasha, who gave a small shrug. She picked up her cup from the table, and walked out of the front door of his room.

"Find it. When you're done, I'll be outside." She said, and shut his front door. She sat down behind the chair and table she had brought and put outside his door. She had set up a camera in his room, because she had suspected that he was hiding something. He would limp around Natasha, but when he was alone, he would be fine. So she hid the coffee in the air vents, a really high place, where she knew Clint would have to really work to get too. She leaned back into her chair, put on the headphones so she could listen, sipped her coffee, and watched the computer screen.

* * *

Clint knew Natasha was up to one of her games to get him to move around. He knew the coffee would be somewhere in the room, but the problem was, where? Since she had left room, his limp that he had used around her magically disappeared. He had used the brace at night, but he had stopped wearing it around a long time ago.

* * *

Natasha sat up in her chair. She was right! He used a fake limp when she was around. She leaned closer to the computer screen, making sure that she was actually seeing walking normally. She whipped out her phone from her back pocket, and took a short video of it. She would show Coulson later.

* * *

Clint walked through his kitchen, opening up every drawer and cabinet, moving around the few dishes he had, making sure she hadn't put it behind them.

After checking all the cabinets, he moved to the fridge. Knowing Natasha, he knew she wouldn't put anything coffee related inside the fridge or freezer (unless it was iced coffee...). But he had a secret. He kept extra food, water, coffee and stuff in a little hole he made behind the fridge when he first got the room. He braced his hands against the side of the fridge, and pulled it, moving it far enough out so he could squeeze behind it.

To get to the hole, he would have to crouch down, and Clint knew his knee wouldn't enjoy it, but it was for coffee. Clint is not enjoyable to be around without at least a cup of coffee. _All of this, just to get some coffee. And not the crappy stuff the cafeteria has. My coffee,_ Clint thought as he bent down. His knee protested against the movement, but he reached the ground. He popped out the loose tile where he kept the food, only to find it empty! The only thing he found was a note in Natasha's slanted handwriting,

 _Try again_

 _-Nat_

He growled, and crumpled the note in his fist. He moved the fridge back into the place, and his eye swept the room for a minute. He realized if she had found his hiding place, she must have bugged the place.

He immediately noticed the small bump on the wall that wasn't there before. He pulled over a chair, and examined the bump closely. He gently scraped off the paint, to reveal a small, wireless bug. He stared into it, giving a slightly evil smile.

* * *

Natasha pulled off her headphone when she heard footsteps behind her. She twisted around, only to see an agent coming out of their room. She brought the coffee to her mouth, and turned back to the computer screen. She choked on her drink when all she saw was Clint smirking.

"Дерьмо." Natasha said underneath her breath.

( _Crap)_

" _Ok, Natasha, I've figured out the place you put the coffee. You think I've never been up there before? Well that's where you were wrong."_ Clint said into the camera. He took the camera, and moved it down to show his leg. " _Here, live and up close. My leg is perfectly fine. And now, I'm going to show you to my world."_ He said, and attached the small bug to his shoulder, so she could see all his movement.

Natasha stared at the camera. She was shocked. Been up there before? Who climbs around in air vents for fun?

* * *

Clint guessed Natasha put the coffee in the air vent, but she didn't know that he traveled around through air vents regularly. Coulson learned that the hard way, having Clint pop out and scare him multiple times.

Instead of pulling a chair underneath the air vent, which he normally did, he just stood underneath it. It was in the corner, in between two walls. He took a couple steps back, and got a running start.

He then ran up the side of one wall, and braced himself with the other. He was now standing in the corner of the two walls, his hands and feet keeping him up there. He removed on hand, to gently pull of the gate of the vent. Then, with a certain grace, he pulled himself up and into the vent, almost doing a flip to get inside. He then put the gate back on the hole.

"Now, that wasn't to hard, now was it?" Clint removed the camera from his shoulder, and spoke into it. He reached out to his right, where his coffee machine and bag of coffee grounds sat. "Now, I'm going to make a quick cup of coffee before we continue." And he did just that.

5 minutes later, one hand with the camera, and another with a steaming cup of coffee. "Ok, Nat. Now, we get a tour of the air vents." He gulped the rest of the coffee down, and placed the empty coffee cup at the beginning of vent. He put the camera back on his shoulder, and moved down the air vents. At the next turn, there was a small drop. After sliding down, he popped off the gate and hung upside down from the vent.

"This is the training room. I still don't know why I'm always late when I can get here easily." He said. Then he moved back through the drop, and climbed up the side easily. He then kept moving north, until he reached another gate.

"This is one is really fun," he whispered, and shoved the camera into the gate. From the vent, there was Fury's office, with the director sitting at his desk. "I play a lot of pranks here." He said, before he was cut off by a nasty set of coughing, ones that made his body shake. "I forgot about the dust," he said, almost as an afterthought.

From the camera, Natasha saw Fury look up and at the air vent. Through the audio, she heard Nick Fury yell in his office.

"Barton, if you are in the vent again, I swear…"

Natasha saw the camera move back into Clint's shoulder as he back up, muttering _crap_ under his breath over and over again.

Clint moved back into the main air vent, and moved west, before he approached another vent.

"This," he said, motionin to the gate, "is my favorite place." He removed the gate to show a small room made from the air vent. Around the side was a TV and a small mini fridge, and in the center, was a big pile of blankets and pillows.

"This is my nest, as I like to call it."

He said, falling backwards into the pile of blankets. "Well, that concluded the tour of Clint Barton's World Above Everyone's Head. Now, collect your belongings and please exit the computer desk, and return to my room. I hope you enjoyed the ride." Clint said with a smile, and crushed the camera in his fist.

* * *

Natasha smiled as she took off her headphones and shut off the computer. Clint Barton, he was a tricky one.

She pushed open his door, to see him sitting at his kitchen table, a smug smile hiding behind his steaming coffee mug, but his eyes giving it away.

"Did you like that?" He asked, taking a sip of his coffee, trying to hide a smirk.

"Best ride in the world." She replied, refilling her own coffee cup, and sitting across from him. "How are your hearing aids working out?"

Clint smiled. "They are actually pretty great. I can hear better now, so that's a plus. Now, am I done with physical therapy, or do I have to keep outthinking Dr. Romanoff?" He asked, which earned a punch in the shoulder.

"Yes, but the only thing left, after a sparring session with me, then you can get your bow back." She said, putting her now empty coffee cup in his sink.

"Let's go." Clint said, immediately standing up.

* * *

 **A/N: Yeah, I wanted to do something with Clint and air vents, because I thought that was pretty funny, so yeah.**

 **I haven't decided what I want to do next, exactly, I know there is going to be a mission, but I haven't figured out anything yet.**

 **Please Review! Pretty please with like a bazillion cherries on top?**


	20. Chapter 20

**A/N: Hey guys, I am soooo sorry, I've taken a really long time trying to decide what I want to do with this awesome (in my opinion) story! There are 2 special things for you guys in this story, 1, I'm introducing a character, YAY! and there is actually a kinda lot of fluff in this! Sorry if it sucks, I'm honestly not very good at writing things like that.**

 **So ya, please read, and please please please, REVIEW! They are actually the most awesome thing to get! This story only has 2 reviews, (thanks to the people who did review) but my other one has 22! Can we try to get into double digits at least?**

* * *

"See? I told you I'm fine?" Clint said in between breathes as he dodged punches thrown at his face by Natasha.

Natasha raised an eyebrow. "Really?" she asked, and then aimed a hard side kick right at his knee, which made contact, and threw Clint to the ground, who layed there. Natasha stood up from her fighting stance and scowled. "See? You can't do this, one hit to your knee and you're down, and if you down, you going to get hurt again, and I-" She was cut off by Clint spinning around on his side, using both legs to swipe at her feet, making her land on the ground with a thump. He gracefully swung his legs around and over his head, pushing up with his arms, and jumping up so he was on his two feet.

"I'm fine. It's called acting, Tasha." Clint said with a smirk, who bent over and gave Natasha his hand to help her get it.

Natasha stood up and brushed off her shoulders and straightened her SHIELD uniform. After their missions, they always changed back into the SHIELD standard uniforms, to blend in with the rest. "Just watch it, Barton, I'll get you when you least expect it." She growled

Clint just laughed, "You, now you're not as intimidating as before. Now your threats are kind of, cute even." He laughed again, walking off the sparring mat to get his water bottle.

Natasha growled at his retreating back, decided whether or not she would attack. Deciding too, she moved forward quietly, not making a noise on the gym mat. Just when she was behind him, she leaped, aiming directly for Clint. Clint, knowing better, ducked down and hit the floor, sending Natasha flying at Coulson, who just walked into the gym.

Coulson fell down from the force of Natasha's leap, Natasha landing on top of him, but immediately rolling off. She stood up, only to look eye-to-eye with another SHIELD agent that walked in with Coulson.

Natasha blushed, her cheeks barely tinted pink, and lended a hand to her handler, helping him up.

"I am so sorry, sir, that was meant for-" Natasha started, talking rapidly. She was cut off when Coulson held up his hand.

"Yes, Barton. It's fine, Romanoff, you are not the first agent to do that too me." Coulson said, and they both stared at Clint as he completely lost it. He was bent over, hands on his knees, cracking up, face deep red.

When Coulson clears his throat, Clint finally stands up, and tries to regain his breath. "What I was about to say, Romanoff, Barton, this is Commander Maria Hill. You've probably seen her around, but she just upped the ranks, so she'll be helping the Director." Coulson explained, and Maria gave a curt nod at each of the agents.

Natasha nodded back, "Ma'am."

Clint, who was still out of whack from laughing, only could manage a small "hi" before bursting out laughing again.

"Hill is going to be overseeing all the missions and official, uh, stuff." Coulson said, scratching his head when he got stuck on wording.

"Real smooth, Coulson. 'Official stuff'" Clint said, using air quotes, and burst out into another laughing fit. Maria looked over at Coulson, who gave her a small nod. She jumped forward, landing on Clint, who fell face forward to the ground. She grabbed his arm, and twisted it up his back, shoving his face further into the ground.

"Oh, fiesty one, huh, Coulson?" He remarked, which earned him another twist in the arm. "Now, can you call her off before she breaks my shooting arm?" He said, eerily calm. Hill looked at Coulson from atop Clint, and he nodded, so she let go of Clint's arm and helped him up.

"Nice meeting you." Maria said, and walked away, yelling at some agents that were hanging around watching.

The two assassins and their handler watched her walk away.

"How do you like her, sir? Do you think she'll be ok?" Clint asked Coulson who looked up from a message on his phone.

"I think she'll be an improvement from some of the other officers. Do you remember Philips?" Coulson asked, laughing.

Clint laughed as well. "Oh yeah, that guy was an idiot."

"Well, I don't trust her. Something's just not right." Natasha said, and stalked off to her room.

Coulson and Clint watched her as she exited. "What's up with her pissy mood?" Coulson asked, but Clint just shrugged.

"I don't know. I insulted her, beat her in sparring, or maybe it's just hormones. We'll probably never know. Well, I'm going to go make sure she doesn't break any level ones newbies." Clint said, and walked off with his towel around his neck and water bottle in hand.

* * *

Clint walked into his room, and changed out of his sweatpants and t-shirt, for his now-clean SHIELD uniform. A black t-shirt and cargo pants, holsters included, and black leather jacket and fingerless gloves. Most people would think it would be too much to just wear for fun, but Clint liked it. The tightness of the holsters on his thigh and the knee pads were a comfort, along with the gloves and combat boots. The outfit felt comfortable, and familiar. When he had first joined SHIELD, it was the one he picked out, and he'd worn it ever since. He left his quiver and bow in his "weapons closet", but he did pick out his favorite gun and placed it in his thigh holster. Carrying around a gun was normal for SHIELD agents, so he wouldn't be out of place.

After changing, he went to Natasha's room, right near his. He knocked on the door, and waited. When there was no response, he tested the doorknob, which was unlocked. He opened up the door, and walked in. The lights weren't on, and Natasha didn't appear to be there.

"Natasha? Are you here?" He called, just to make sure. He got no reply, and walked back out, shutting the door behind him.

He went back to his room, to make sure she was not hiding in there. His bedroom was empty, and she wasn't in the kitchen or the couch he called the living room.

"Romanoff?" He called, "If you think this is a joke it isn't very funny."

A muffled response came from above him. "I'm up here, Barton." Clint sighed. He should've checked his air vents. He popped the gate off the front, and jumped up inside, replacing it back where it was. He crawled back into his "nest" to find Natasha sitting there, playing with a strand of her hair as she stared at the side of the air vent.

"You want to keep staring at that wall? I mean, it is a pretty interesting wall." Clint quipped, stacking some pillows up and sitting next to Natasha.

Natasha just shook her head. "I don't know, I just have a kind of, bad feeling about today. It's odd. I don't know if it's Hill coming in, or just today, it just feels weird. It's really driving me nuts." She leaned back against the pillows, and ran her hands over her forehead and groaned.

Clint looked at his partner. She looked stressed, and it wasn't good for her. He was conflicted on what he wanted to do. He wanted to comfort her, but he didn't know how. He lifted his hand to try, but she then looked up, so he immediately scratched the back of his head, attempting to cover it up.

Natasha saw Clint reach out his hand out of the corner of her eye, and she was confused. What was he doing? She saw him try to cover it up by scratching the back of his head, but she saw the sheepish smile on his face, and the red tint that filled his cheeks. She felt, weird. She didn't what it was. She just had the sudden urge to do something. Reacting on that urge, she moved over and leaned her head against Clint's shoulder. She felt him stiffen for a moment at her touch, but relax after a couple seconds.

Clint was surprised. Natasha never liked touch. It felt good though. Decided to try what he did the first time, he shifted his arm a little, and placed it on top of her head, and moved it down her hair.

Natasha flinched when Clint put his hand on her head, but go over the nervousness in her stomach and enjoyed it. She never realized it before, but she liked his touch. She liked the way his fingers with push through the tangles in her hair that she forgot to brush out. She liked how he would rest his hand on her shoulder, his thumb moving in small circles on her shoulder blades. She liked how when he got to open skin, he would unconsciously move up and down her skin, not in a weird way, just feeling her skin, all the bumps, and the scar that covered her body.

Natasha thought a lot about that. Scars. She had plenty, more than her fair share. And she felt that Clint did too, and probably a lot more than she had. She had mixed feelings about scars. She hated them, they laced her body, showing all the places she made a mistake, messed up, so she payed the price. Some were a mistake during a mission, not being quiet enough or, heaven forbid, slipped on the trigger and miss. Those were the least painful. Other she got from the Red Room. Maybe she made a mistake, but missed the punishment. The Red Room had special ways to get punishment. Whether it was burns, or poison, or even getting shot, they always got punished.

Natasha wondered how Clint got his. She knew a lot of them probably came from SHIELD mission got wrong, but she also saw his past with the "fear test". His parents had died, his foster father abusive, and then he joined the circus, and they weren't any better. She saw some on his legs and arms often, he wasn't afraid of those. She guessed he had many more on his back and chest, more that he wouldn't share. Maybe at some point, she would ask about them. For right now, she was happy laying here, her best friend, and partner by her side, all her problems somewhat forgotten.

 _ **BOOM!**_

An explosion rattle the building, causing the air vents to shake.

"What the crap was that?!" Clint shouted, sitting up, with Natasha right next to him.

"I don't know," Natasha started to say, but she was cut off by the sound of gunfire. Clint and Natasha stared at each other, shocked. Clint turned down the volume on his hearing aids slightly, so he wouldn't become deaf again from an explosion.

He started to turn to go down the air vents to his room, but Natasha stopped him. SHe cocked her head and listened.

"Quick, I hear shouting from Fury's room, let's go check it out." She said, and the assassins started frantically crawling that way.

They reached the air vent right next to Fury's office, and Natasha pressed her face against the gate, eyes taking in every deal.

Fury and Coulson were on there knees, hands laced behind their head, and people shouting and pointing guns at them.

"Crap." Natasha whispered, and turned to Clint. "It's HYDRA. There on the helicarrier."

* * *

 **A/N: Hahaha, whoops? I had a really great fluffy moment, but I had to go ruin it with HYDRA. Yeah, I know, I'm horrible. But, please review and tell me how you guys thought I did with the fluffy stuff! Thanks!**


	21. Chapter 21

**Hey my dudes, here is the next chapter! Sorry, I've taken like forever, summer's been really busy. I'm in Chicago right now, but I brought my laptop and have WiFi, so I can update. Hopefully this means I can do more updating.**

 **WhatHaveBooksDoneToMe: Hey, thank you so much for reviewing, and yes, I will try to update as soon as possible, I hope you enjoy this chapter!**

 **Oh, and also, I was reading through my chapters, and I noticed a crap ton of misspellings and typos and stuff, so I sorry about that, I will try to check that more often.**

* * *

Clint and Natasha moved back from the gate, and sat down in the nest once again.

"What are we going to do?" Clint said, running a hand through his hair.

"I don't know. We definitely need to go help Coulson and Fury. So we'll need weapons." Natasha said, making a list in her head.

"I can go grab some from my room. I'll be right back." Clint said, and crawled back to the beginning of the air vents that led to his room. He was about to open up the gate when the door to his room burst open. Armed HYDRA agents swarmed the room, checking to make sure no one was in there. As silently as he could, he moved back to the nest.

"HYDRA's already got my room, there no way to get the weapons out of there without getting noticed." Clint said, shaking his head. "But luckily, I have some guns up here just in case." He moved to pull off a siding of the air vent, which revealed a little space where two Glock 22, with 3 magazines each sat there. Clint took them out and handed one to Natasha, and kept the other for himself.

"Ok," Natasha started, after loading one magazine in the Glock and keeping the other two in her pocket, "first, let's go help Fury and Coulson."

Silently, the assassins moved through the air vents until they reached the one leading to Fury's office. Peeking through the gate, they saw Fury and Coulson had moved, now leaning against the back wall, hands and feet tied. Two HYDRA agents were stationed in the room, one sitting in Fury's chair, and the other holding a gun at their prisoners.

The one in the chair seemed totally oblivious, spinning around and around in the chair, and occasionally bringing his hand up to his ear and mumbling a "yes sir," or "no sir," into his comm. The other one seemed to be the strong and silent type, standing there watching Fury and Coulson, and only replying with grunts when talked to by his colleague.

Natasha took a deep breath, steadying herself, before nodding to Clint, signalling she was ready. Clint cocked his leg back, and slammed it into the gate, hitting the floor with a metallic thud. Both HYDRA guards turned their heads, but before they could do much, small bullet holes in the center of their forehead. They hit the ground softly, and Natasha and Clint jumped down from the vents.

"Barton, Romanoff, what the heck took you so long? My butt is asleep from sitting here on this gosh darn floor while you guys dilly dallied up in the air vents." Fury started yelling as Natasha moved the guards against the wall and Clint took a knife out of his boots and cut the bonds.

"Do you always keep a knife there Barton?" Coulson asked, rubbing circulation back into his wrists.

"Dang it, sir. I'm going to have to move all my knives now." Clint said, a smirk filling his face as he moved over to cut off the ropes holding Fury.

"You better move your knife faster or I'll have your job, Barton." Fury threatened his agent when Clint hesitated to cut his boss's ropes. Clint just laughed and slit the ropes easily.

The two assassins and their handler stood around as Fury sat down on his desk and folded his hands together.

"So, what happened exactly?" Romanoff asked, looking between her boss and her handler.

Coulson shrugged. "I don't exactly know. We were fine for a while, then an explosion happened on the flight deck, and HYDRA swarmed."

Natasha bit her lip, also debating whether she was going to say something. Clint noticed this and took a deep breath.

"Natasha thinks that Hill started this." He stated, almost at like a five year old tattle-taling on another kid.

Natasha opened her mouth to speak, but punched Clint in the shoulder. He jumped a little, and rubbed his arm with his hand. Natasha shot him a look but he just smiled.

"To be honest, Romanoff, I had some suspicions when the HYDRA idiots tied us up, but I'd put those aside for now. Besides, I think she can hold her own." Fury finished, and leaned back into his chair. Just then the door to Fury's office burst open, and shut equally as fast. Commander Hill stood there, her gun visibly smoking, and breathing hard.

"Hill?" Coulson asked, surprised.

"Sorry for the intrusion. I needed somewhere to hide. HYDRA took control of the control room, and are holding all the agents hostage." She said, and walked forward, wiping her gun on her shirt, and putting it back in its holster.

"Ok then. We need a plan. How many weapons do we have?" Coulson said, taking control of situation when Fury didn't do anything.

"Two guns, one knife." Clint said.

"One gun." Hill added.

"Together, we have 2 guns." Coulson spoke for himself and his boss.

"One gun, two knives, two fully charged shockers, three knockout darts, and five different explosives." Natasha stated, her face blank. Clint stared at her, mouth agape.

"How do you hold all of that? Do you just walk around with bombs on you?" He asked, incredulous. Natasha just shrugged, but gave a small smile.

"Ok, that seems like enough. If we really want to get headway on HYDRA, we need to get more weapons. They probably have them under heavy guard, but getting there would defiantly help us rescue the rest of the agents. The weapons vault is not that far from here, down the left in this hallway, and pass a bunch of security clearances, to the vault." Coulson said.

Hill nodded. "There are two guards stationed at each door, and random agents walk up and down the hallways. We would need to get past them, and avoid cameras if possible."

Everyone seemed to agree-even Natasha, who was still a little wary of Hill being there-so all eyes went to Nick Fury. He kept staring at his hands, until he realized everyone had stopped talking. He looked up, staring at everyone with his one eye.

"What?" He growled, confused on why they were all staring at him.

Clint looked at Natasha. "I don't know, sir, you're just really quiet." Clint said slowly, and kind of shrunk back, when Fury glared at him.

Fury stared at his agents, all expecting a reply. He took a deep breath. "This is a lot more serious than you morons realize. Saving the other agents might have to happen later. Down below deck, we are carrying long range ballistic missiles, very deadly ones too. One of those missiles can turn New York City to ashes. I've seen the video feeds, HYDRA has gained control of those, and are planning to use them. That's why they attacked today. They are planning to use them to destroy anyone that goes against them."

* * *

 **Hey so, sorry for the cliffhanger/cliche ending, but ya. I'm working on the next chapter, so I'm working on it.**

 **Please Review!**


	22. Chapter 22

**Hey guys, see I told you, I would actually update faster! That's good, I guess. So this chapter was fun to write, and try not to get too mad at me, alright? ;)**

 **Please Read and Review! I really like those!**

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"Ok, new priority then, get the missiles." Coulson said, have surprised, but mostly annoyed. "HYDRA is getting to repetitive. Get weapons, take over the world, yada yada ya." A loud snort came from Natasha, who covered her mouth, but didn't stop laughing.

"We still need to get some more weapons though, what all do they have in there?" Hill asked.

"They have one of the bows I use, and some arrows." Clint said, sitting down in one of the chairs in front of Fury's desk. "Except I really want my bow from my room, but stupid HYDRA has to be there." He muttered under his breath.

"They have my batons in there, those would be useful." Natasha added, moving closer to Clint.

"It has pretty much the most powerful weapons in the world. There is a new prototype we have been working on, since the Destroyer came to Earth. It's supposed to be really powerful." Coulson said, smiling. He'd always liked big guns.

"Ok then. Let's go." Natasha said, and everyone made their way towards the door.

All guns and weapons were drawn, and aiming at the ground, until Clint swung the door open. Natasha and Coulson were the first people out, followed by Fury and Hill, then Clint. They moved as a group, Natasha leading point, and Coulson and Clint on her sides. Fury stayed behind, watching the back more than front. They had made it down the hallway without meeting any HYDRA agents, so when they reached the corner, Natasha held up a fist, signaling the group to stop.

She peeked around the corner, seeing three guards, armed with large automatics, patrolling the halls. She leaned back and started signaling the groups. She held up three fingers. _Three guards._ Held up a finger gun. _Armed._ Made two C's with her hand, then waved on finger around in a circle. _Clint, Coulson, go, go, go!_

Clint and Coulson moved almost as one, simultaneously crouching, aiming, and firing their guns at the guards. In seconds, the hallway was cleared. Clint waved his finger around in the circle, and they moved forward again. In each door way, the closest agent would turn and clear the room, making sure no one was there. Slowly making progress, they reached the weapons vault. Fury walked up, while the others kept holding their guns, and punched in the code.

First, there was the 8-digit code. Then came the retinal scan. Fury bent down, so his good eye was covered by a light green laser. _Retinal confirmed._ A feminine voice came out from the speakers. Finally, a small microphone moved out from the panel, and required the voice scan. "Fury, Nicholas J." _Confirmed._ The little voice came up again, a green light blinked, and the heavy metal door opened.

"Woah." Clint breathed, mesmerized by the sheer amount of weaponry in the room.

"Ok. everyone grab something you need." Coulson said, immediately heading towards a big black and orange gun. He lifted it off the rack, and held it, almost like he was judging it's weight in his arms. Fury when towards the side, were more automatics were kept in slots. He pulled one out and slung it over his shoulder. He also took some magazines for his automatic and pistol he kept in his holster. Natasha pulled open a drawer and pulled out two long, dull blue sticks. She flipped a switch on the bottom, and they filled with light, little sparks flying off. She smiled, an eerie blue glow filling her face in the dark room. Clint moved to a secluded corner, and hit a short code. A panel slide open, and he pulled out a bow. A quiver came out with it, filled with arrows. He also checked his mags for the two guns he had. Hill stayed back until everyone finished, and grabbed another gun, some more magazines, and a couple of grenades.

Everyone was done and met back at the door, ready to go out. The group looked funny, the five of them, fully decked out with dangerous weapons. If they walked in slow motion, and all wore sunglasses, they would look pretty awesome.

"So, where are we going now?" Natasha asked, no higher than a whisper, not wanting to be heard by any HYDRA agents.

"We need to go down below the deck. The missiles are kept down there, and the equipment to launch them is down there as well." Fury said, equally as quiet. The others agreed, and started to lead in the same formation they did as last time, except Fury led point and Clint led up the back.

Along the way, the other HYDRA guards were easy to take out. They reached the trapdoor and ladder that led below deck.

"Who's first?" Clint asked.

"I got it." Hill said, and put her gun back in her holster. Coulson spoke up next.

"Barton, Romanoff, go with her. We'll follow in a minute. We need to check out the control room."

Natasha spoke up. "Sir, are you sure we should be splitting up? I mean, it would be better if-"

She was cut off by Fury. "Agent, those are your orders. You should follow them. We'll be fine." Natasha shrugged and turned away. She waved her hand in front of her, sort of inviting Hill to go down the ladder. Fury and Coulson ran off, and the trap door swung up, making the wall vibrate from the metal against metal. Hill took a small breath, and gracefully moved down the ladder. Clint slung his bow over his shoulder and pulled out a gun, holding it in his left hand as he moved down the ladder behind Hill. He kept his gun trained out, in case a HYDRA agent showed up. Natasha followed suit, her gun in her right hand.

When they reached the bottom, they immediately hid behind some crates. Natasha pulled out her second gun, and Clint switched back to his bow, a weapon he was much more comfortable with. Cautiously, the assassins and the commander looked over the crate. HYDRA agents swarmed all over, triple the amount of guards roaming the grounds. In the center, the missile launcher sat there, one missile already loaded. It held two more, and those two were on platforms, moving slowly, very slowly towards the launcher.

"What are we going to do?" Hill asked, trying to figure out how to proceed. She was the commander, she needed a plan. She didn't get a reply, and she turned to see that the other agents were missing. She looked back out onto the deck, and she barely saw the two assassins. She almost gave a small whistle. Fury was right when he talked about them. They were not more than shadows in the background, popping out and taking out guards. Clint used his arrows, because they were silent, and Natasha would sneak up behind the guards and take them out, either knocking them out and cutting off their air supply, or just clean snapping their neck.

Hill debated on what she wanted to do. She could go help, but she was nowhere as stealthy as the professional assassins. She slid back down below the crate, when she heard an explosion. She felt the heat even though she was behind a crate. She looked back up after it passed, and she saw Clint and Natasha, standing back to back, surrounded by HYDRA agents. Everything was silently for a moment, before they got extremely loud. Thousands of bullets and lasers and deadly weapons bombarded the assassins, and Hill gasped. Clint and Natasha fought back strongly, Hill could even see the sweat dripping off them. Suddenly, Natasha gave a loud gasp, a red stain swelled up on her stomach. She dropped her gun, and held her hands against her stomach. Two more red spots showed up, both on her abdomen.

"NATASHA!" Clint yelled, running over to her side. He slid over and kneeled over her, before he got shot as well. One hit him in the leg, three more in his chest, and one grazed his arm. He kneeled next to Natasha for a moment more, before falling over. Hill felt her chest go tight as she saw HYDRA agents drag Clint and Natasha towards the launcher, lots of blood following them behind them. SHIELD's best agents, dead? Hill couldn't believe it.

Next thing she knew, Fury and Coulson came running in, guns blazing. They hit a couple of HYDRA agents, but they were soon overwhelmed. They were stripped of their weapons, tied up, and placed next to the motionless bodies of Clint and Natasha. Hill saw them stare at their agents, and Coulson tried to move over to check out the damage, but he couldn't moved, being tied up like that.

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 **Ooh, Cliffhanger, I know, please don't hate me. Will they die? Will they survive? Will Hill pull through? Or is she HYDRA? No one knows!**

 **Please, please review, I really really like those. Those make my day!**


	23. Chapter 23

**Hey guys, look at that, another post back-to-back. That's gotta be some sort of record somewhere right?**

 **So yeah, here is the next chapter! Please please please review! Come on, guys. One of my other stories has 23 reviews, 20 more than this one! Please review!**

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Hill burned with rage as she hid back behind the crate. Coulson and Fury were captured. Barton and Romanoff, the two best assassins, dead beside them. I can't just sit here, I have to do something! She thought frantically, trying to come up with a plan. Screw the plan, I just need to get help! She decided, and, as quietly as possible, moved behind all the crates.

She hid in the shadows, moving closer and closer to where Fury and Coulson were tied up. There was a straight-a-way, so she sprinted to it, and pressed her back against the wall. On the other side of the wall was Coulson and Fury, so she took a deep breath, jumped out and started shooting. She was one of the best shots in her class at the SHIELD Academy, so all her bullets hit the target, each going down with a flash of red. Hill didn't even stop to dodge bullets, or hide behind crates, she was a machine, pulling the trigger time after time, hitting an HYDRA agent each time. When she was out of bullets, with lightning-fast reflexes she reached behind her and pulled a fresh magazine out of her belt, and jammed it into the gun, and started firing once again.

By the time she reached Coulson and Fury, she had taken out the same number of agents Barton and Romanoff had working together.

"Hill?" Coulson asked in shock, trying to understand the situation. Hill had dropped her gun next to her, and bent down to untie Coulson. "What are you doing here?"

"I'm trying to get you out of here." Hill mumbled, gritting her teeth as she tried to untie the knots. She struggled to get them out, they were really tight, and all the adrenaline she used up shooting HYDRA agents, started to come back and haunt her.

Coulson turned as much as he could, and Hill finally started to loosen the ropes. "There we go," she said under her breath, pulling became easier, and his hands were almost free.

"Hill, watch out! Behind you-" Fury called out a warning, but a HYDRA agent came up behind her, kicked her in the back, which she then fell over on top of Coulson.

"Stand up!" The HYDRA agent barked, and slowly, Hill stood up, hands raised where the agent could see them. "Take your gun out, place it on the floor next to the other one, and kick both towards me." The agent yelled, and Hill did that, all while trying to figure out a way to get out of this alive.

At the last second, Hill jumped forward, grabbed the gun off the floor, and shot the HYDRA agent in the chest. Another HYDRA agent moved from behind the one she shot, and took his place.

"HAIL HYDRA!" He screamed, and aimed his gun at Fury's head. Hill saw this, and only one thought popped in her head. At the last second, she jumped in front of the gun, blocking Fury, and having the bullet hit her in the stomach.

She fell to the floor, in seemingly slow motion, and hit it with a thud. Surprisingly, she felt no pain, but she saw the red coating her stomach. Next thing she knew, Clint and Natasha were standing over her.

"Am I dead?" She asked, confused. She was looking right at Clint and Natasha, who she saw die right in front of her, so that must mean she was dead.

"No, Hill, you're alive. We are too. We never died." Natasha said, and gave a hand down to the commander, who took it and pulled herself up.

Hill looked around, and saw all the HYDRA agents who had been shot stand up, guns to their sides, talking with one another, red spots covering their clothes.

"But, what-you were shot-I shot people-what's going on?" She demanded, placing her suspiciously red hands on her hips.

Coulson slipped out of the ropes easily, and held up his hands as he laughed. "Calm down Maria. This was a set up. People had some doubts in you from the beginning, so we set up a fake HYDRA attack. SHIELD agents dressed in HYDRA gear attacked everyone, and then we split up purposely to get you alone with Barton and Romanoff," Coulson said, pointing towards Clint and Natasha, who both waved. "Then you saw them get 'killed' and me and the director ran in to get 'captured'. In the end, it was a test of loyalty. You did that well, and you passed the test." He finished, smiling.

"Ok..." Hill started, still kind of confused. "But what about the bullets? I mean, it looked so real."

This time Fury answered. "Paintballs. We replaced all the bullets with paint balls. Any other weapons, like Romanoff's batons and Barton's arrows are real, but shot in places non-fatal."

"Not all of them were paintballs, I think." Clint spoke up, and moved his arm to see a rip in his SHIELD shirt, and a thick line of red across his tricep. "Someone had a bullet."

Coulson waved him off. "You'll be fine, Barton. You've been hurt worse than that you big baby. Deal with it later." Clint made a face, but moved over and started talking rapidly to Natasha. Hill could hear them, but not all of it was English, she heard bits of Russian mixed in there as well.

"I thought they actually died, you know. It was very convincing. And the way you reacted when you saw them made it even more real." Hill said to Coulson, crossing her arms as she watched the assassins.

"I know. But they wouldn't die. Not like that. If anything, Clint would be the first to go, not Natasha. But they are good agents, and I've been in tough spots with them where we didn't know if we were going to make it out or not. But they can handle themselves." Coulson said, talking fondly. Hill could tell that the agents had a special bond with their handler, it showed quite clearly.

"Now, back to other business." Fury said, walking over to them

"Commander Hill, welcome to SHIELD." He said, sticking his hand out, a small smile on his face, a rare sight. Hill took his hand a shook it gratefully.

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 **Yeah! People are actually alive! This was actually pretty fun to write.**

 **Ok, now let's get down to business (to defeat, the Huns (sorry couldn't help myself)). So this is actually getting kind of long, but not nearly as long as some of the stories on here, but I'm deciding on stuff. Me, personally, unless I'm like really into it, don't read like 30-40 chapter long stories, and I'm in the 20's now. So what I'm probably going to do, is get on more mission out of this one, and, if I'm still into this (which I probably will still be because Clintasha is my favorite ship out of everything!) Make a new story, kind of a sequel to this, so there is alot of more missions to do! Yay! As always, if you have something you want me to do, review, and I will do it!**

 **Thanks! Please Review!**


	24. Chapter 24

**Hey peoples. Guess what? This is the last chapter! Ha! Sorry for taking so long, this is pretty much the longest chapter I've ever written and it took me _forever_ to write. But here it is! I really hope you enjoy it! As always, please review, tell me how you think I did with this story!**

 **REVIEWS!**

 **Mediocre Storyteller: Thank you so much for reviewing! Writing Clint's parts with the air vents was probably my favorite part to write I'm glad you enjoyed it. Thank you for reviewing, I'm glad you like this so much! :)**

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She was in the forest, sprinting, running for her life once again. The leaves and twigs, brushing past her, leaving little cuts across her face and neck, the only part of her body not covered in her leather suit. She looked up, seeing the sun starting to set in the sky, tinting the sky orange and pink. Soon, the leaves swirling in the wind made her dizzy as she looked up, so she kept her eyes to the ground, focusing on putting one foot ahead of the other. She couldn't count the amount of times she was in this situation. Running, people wanting to kill her not far behind. But, for the first time she was stuck in this, she had a partner. She'd never worked with someone else before. She would've never even dreamed of it. She was the Black Widow, and she worked alone.

But here she was. Clint was with her, at the beginning. It wasn't an easy mission, but no harder than any other thing they've faced. They came in on the Quinjet, taking orders from their handler, Coulson, through the computer. Their mission, to hijack a HYDRA base, and steal information using a specially made hard drive. Natasha was the one holding the hard drive, she was supposed to sneak in. Clint? He was the distraction, making as much trouble as he wanted. Clint thrived in that. Watching him set off arrow after arrow with explosives, an evil grin on his face, Natasha _almost_ smiled.

It had gone perfectly. Clint's distraction were enough to keep on the agents on him, letting Natasha sneak in a grab all the information. The next and last part of the plan, was to leave a bomb, massive enough to blow up the entire base, and talking all the HYDRA agents with it. Natasha and Clint would be out of the building, and hopefully a safe distance away. But that's where it went wrong. As Natasha ran out of the computer room, the explosions had stopped. Clint was gone, and the hallway was empty, except for the bodies that lay there, dead. Natasha panicked for a second, checking the faces quickly, making sure it wasn't her partner.

Taking a quick sigh of relief when none of them were, she ran down the hallway, twisting and turning against the sharp corners, moving faster and faster, searching for Clint. She was worried, but not overwhelmed with it. He had been in difficult situations before, some more than normal human beings could be but through. Which is why Natasha admired him. She was a machine. Trained to do what she is told, to feel nothing, ever. He wasn't. He had been hardened over the years, but he was still human. The incredible things he down, the tortures he gone through, amazed Natasha.

Nevertheless, she needed to find him. No man behind was a new topic for her, but she was going to follow it. She sprinted up to a big tree, and stood behind it, pressing up against the rough bark. She needed to take out those agents. Moving like a cat, she climbed up the tree with ease, and rested on the branch, holding a gun in each hand. Six HYDRA agents sped past her tree, and six shots later, each agent lay dead.

She jumped out of the tree, landing on her feet and rolling, before running closer to the massive brick building that lay ahead.

Coulson told them which building was the base, and they blew that up. They didn't realize there was a second building. But Natasha theorized that was where Barton was being held. Seeing no other HYDRA agents around, she made the final stretch, and stood against the side of the building. After pausing to take a breath, she moved around the corner to find the door. She saw it, but it was inches of steel and bolts.

She looked for another opening, and found a broken window about two stories above her. She pulled out a specially made gun, and shot a grappling hook into the window, hooking it into the broken glass and wood. She pulled the rope a couple times to make sure it holds. In one swift movement, she ran and jumped up the side of the wall, moving quickly up the rope. As she got nearer to the top, the rope started to shift against the broken glass and wood.

As she reached the top, the rope and grappling hook fell out from it's spot, and Natasha made one last jump to reach the top of the window, gripping the ledge with one hand. She sucked in a quick breath as the piece of glass she used to pull herself up cut her hand. She carefully placed her other hand in a clear spot, and pulled herself up and through the window.

Once she was in the brick building, she clutched her wrist as stared at her hand. A thick red line crossed her palm, and blood started to pool around it. She tried to wipe a little of the blood away, but she hissed when she touched it. It stung like the devil. Luckily, she found a cleaning cloth on a crate next to her. She grimaced as she wrapped it around her hand. It wouldn't be the cleanest thing, but it would work.

After she fastened it on, she kept low, and started scanning the area. She was on a high platform, and below her was a straight drop all the way to the bottom. At the bottom, were two doors, both padlocked with a keypad.

Natasha took a deep breath, and moved towards her right. There was a set of spiral stairs leading down to the bottom, so as quietly as she could, she moved down them. Her wedge high-heeled boots barely making a sound on the metal.

Suddenly, a door slammed open from somewhere, and three guards entered the building. Natasha froze on the stairs, not daring to even breath. They walked towards the door on the left, and the first guard punched a code into the machine. Natasha cheered inside her head. From her spot on the stairs, she could just barely see the code.

 _1971._ A year, easy to guess. Years were the first thing people turned to when it came to number codes. When the rest of the guards made it through the door, and it hissed shut, Natasha ran down the steps. She punched in the code, and the door swung open. She hoped he was in this hallway, because she didn't know the code to the other door.

She moved swiftly down the hall, silently following the guards that had just entered, but also checking in every window. The hallway didn't ease her nerves whatsoever. They all seemed to be testing rooms, a subject hooked up to tubes and wires and other dangerous contraptions.

Natasha prayed that Clint wasn't hooked up to one of those machine. She sprinted down the hallway, moving faster and faster, eyes moving as fast as could. The guards in front of her came in front of another door, so she snuck up right behind them, walking in the door before it shut on her.

Without making a sound, Natasha moved up behind the guards, and in one swift movement, broke each of their necks without even noticing. Spying the cameras placed in the hallway, she quickly donned on the bulletproof vest and helmet from one of the guards.

Not having to hide in the shadows anymore, she walked briskly down the hall, reaching the windowed area in a matter of seconds. She pressed her hands up against the window and gave a small gasp. Clint was in the back, hands tied up above his head, setup almost how Scarlotti had him. More HYDRA agents surrounded him, punching and beating him with their fists, guns, whatever they had on them.

Natasha looked closer in the window, and the beating had seemed to have been happening for a lot of time. He didn't fight back when he was hit, he hung there limply, taking all the hits. Natasha couldn't move, stared stock still at the sight, even when one of the guards pulled out a knife. Her mind was telling her to _move! Go help Clint!_ The HYDRA agent seemed to ask something, and Clint didn't reply.

The HYDRA agent who seemed to be in charge nodded, and the one with the knife stabbed Clint in the leg, right in his left thigh. Natasha hoped they didn't nick any major arteries. Clint jerked against the movement, but his lips remained shut. Natasha almost smiled, knowing Clint was handling this. She needed to move, needed to get him out, but her body wouldn't let her. Madame B's voice was in her head, telling her to leave. Leave her partner, get out of the building, destroy everything. Be invisible. _You have no place in the world._

Natasha watched as the thought flew through her brain, rendering herself useless. Then, the guard who had stabbed Clint walked over and grabbed the knife. Natasha thought he would pull it out and stab somewhere else. But instead, he twisted it, causing Clint to cry out. It was unearthly, a sound Natasha had never heard before. Clint had gotten hurt, he had cried out in pain before, yes, but it was nothing like this.

Something in Natasha snapped, and she was moving, moving at the speed of light. She flung open the door, grabbing the attention of all of the guards.

"It's the Black Widow!" One of the agents cried out. His hand flew to the gun at his head, but the movement proved useless. Natasha had already drawn her gun and shot three rounds into the guard's chest.

"Shoot him!" The commanding HYDRA agent shouted, trying to kill their captive before the Black Widow could stop it. HYDRA had heard about the famous duo, The Black Widow and Hawkeye were the best assassins ever heard of, even though they had only been working together for about a year.

Natasha took two more shots, each one hitting two of the guards. She didn't shoot the commanding officer, although. She knocked the gun out of his hand, sending it skittering across the floor. He stared at it helplessly, and looked back at Natasha with terror in his eyes. Natasha breathed through her teeth, not from being out of breath, but from the unbridled angers bubbling out of her.

"What. Did. You. Do?" Natasha spat out every word, slapping the command officer across the face with the gun each time. The officers kept moving backwards, until he tripped over the body of one of his fallen comrades. Natasha easily picked him back up and shoved him up against the wall, his feet barely touching the ground.

"J-just what I was told to, t-they told me to get out the information he had." The scared officer stammered out, choking slightly from Natasha's grip on his collar.

"What did he say?" Natasha, taking a gun from her holster and pressed it underneath his chin.

"N-nothing, nothing, I swear! We couldn't break him." The officers eyes were frantic, moving wildly all over the room. He landed on something it the room, but Natasha wasn't concerned about it

Natasha smiled an almost evil smile, smirking through her rage. "Good. Then you lost."

The officer looked scared for a moment, but then laughed. It was a giggle for a moment, before it was a full blown laugh. Natasha stared at him, until the laughed died down. "If you think we've lost, you're crazy." Suddenly, two shots rang out from behind her, and Natasha whipped around. One of the guards she had shot wasn't dead, and he had fired two rounds into Clint. Natasha shot that guard in the head, and turned back to the officer. The officer smiled, and snapped his jaw. Natasha jumped back, and the officer slumped to the floor, white foam bubbling out of his mouth.

' _Cyanide.'_ Natasha thought with disgust. She ran over to Clint, pulling a knife out of her belt, and cut the rope holding him to the ceiling. Clint didn't move at all, didn't make any noise, nothing at all. That worried Natasha.

Natasha laid Clint down gently, and placed her fingers at his neck, checking for a pulse. Thankfully, there was one, weak and erratic, but there. Quickly she placed two fingers up to her ear, pressing her comm.

"Coulson, we need medevac here, stat. Barton's down." Natasha said frantically, pulling cloth from the HYDRA agents to stop the blood.

"Copy that, Romanoff," Coulson replied statically, voiced breaking in and out of the comm. "ETA about 10 minutes, hold on."

"I don't know if he had 10 minutes." Natasha said to herself. She made a tourniquet out of some of the cloth and fashioned it around his leg. That would stop the bleeding for now. Her main concern for right now was the bullet wounds. One was in the lower half of his chest, near his right kidney. Natasha looked at it didn't seem to hit any major arteries. But the other one was on the left side, and it was in the area of the left lung. She could tell blood was filling the lung but the liquid-sounding coughs coming from Clint, and the little blood that was spit up every time.

"Barton. You need to wake up. Please. You are not dying on me, you jerk." Natasha said, trying to get Clint to wake up. Soon, his eyelids started to flutter, and they squinted against the light.

"Tasha?" He croaked out. It was followed by a nasty coughing fit, where Clint squeezed his eyes as tight as they could go.

"Right here, Barton. Coulson and medics are on their way, you need to stay with me." Natasha said, pressing down on the bullet wounds with as much pressure needed to keep the blood from coming out.

"What happened?" Clint forced out, teeth grinding through the pain.

Natasha sighed. "You were caught by HYDRA, hung up here for god knows how long, tortured, stabbed in the leg, then shot twice." She took a deep breath. "How bad?" She asked.

Coulson had created a thing for Clint and Natasha, a scale on the pain. 1 out of 10, one being almost nothing, and ten being the worst pain ever felt. Clint sucked in a breath. "Probably about an eight." He groaned and leaned his head back, hands clenching into fists.

Natasha was overwhelmed with an emotion she had never really felt before, sympathy. "Clint, I know, it hurts, but you have to hold on." Tears pricked her eyes. Clint was the only person she trusted, she didn't even trust herself. He had brought her out of the worst place, and brought her to SHIELD, where she was able to start over. He had given her a second chance, and she owed him. He could not die on her, Natasha wouldn't allow it.

She lifted her hands up from pressing on the wounds to switch the now-bloodstained cloth with a clean one. Natasha noticed her hands were shaking, and for the first time she was _scared._ Clint saw her hands shaking as well, so he tried to lighten the mood.

"Hey, well, at least next time, I might just be immune to bullets." He cracked, smirking a tiny bit. His smiled faded away when he felt another massive cough come up, racking his hold body. His eyes rolled back into his head and shut.

"No. Clint, wake up, you need to stay awake!" Natasha yelled, slapping his face, desperately trying to get him to wake up. Tears streamed down her face, another rare thing to happen. Clint sucked in a deep breath, and his chest fell still. A line of blood dripped out of his mouth, and his body fell limp in Natasha's arms.

"No." She whispered, not willing to believe it.

"Clint."

"CLINT!"

She pressed her fingers up against his neck, searching for a pulse. She pressed harder.

There was nothing.

Natasha let out an anguished scream, from every part of her body, rage, sadness, all emotions let out in a second moment, the scream, seemed to last for an eternity.

* * *

Natasha sat up sharply, shaking and shivering in her bed. She had the covers pulled up to her chest, searching around the room.

' _It was just a nightmare.'_ Natasha told herself. But it had felt so real. The emotions, all of it felt so real. She knew what she needed to do.

Throwing on some pants and a too-big sweatshirt she had stolen from Clint's closet, she moved to the door five rooms down from hers, Clint's room. Quietly she knocked, and a second later Clint appeared at the door, sleepy, leaning against the door frame.

When he saw Natasha, he immediately stood up. "Natasha? Are you alright." Natasha debated her answers for a moment before shaking her head.

"Alright, come on in." He said, holding the door open for her. She walked in and he shut it behind her. He walked over to the kitchen. "Do you want some coffee or something-" He started to ask, but was cut off as Natasha just walked over and hugged Clint.

She clung to him, holding him as tightly as she could, silently crying into his shoulder. Clint was surprised at first, but soon wrapped his arms around Natasha, and they stood there.

"That bad, huh?" Clint said after a couple minutes of this. Natasha didn't reply, just nodded into his shirt. "Let's move over here, yeah? Then you can get some sleep." Slowly, they moved over to his couch, and they sat there, Natasha holding to Clint, leaning up against him, able to breath easy now. She smiled and leaned up closer against him, feeling safer than she ever had before.

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 **So, I'm kinda sad actually. This was my first story on here, and I actually finished it. So that's good and bad, I guess.**

 **Ok, back to business. I really hope you liked this story, and just because I really like Clintasha, they are my OTP, I'm going to make a sequel. I haven't gotten any real ideas yet, so if you have one, please review, I will definitely put it in my story!**

 **So ya. I loved writing this story, this was-in my opinion-my bet story, so I hope you liked it. Please review and tell me how I did, it makes me feel so good.**

 **So I'm signing off, I'll see you with my next story!**

 **Stay awesome, love Avengers, and be hilarious!**

 **-avengersashley**


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